From 10% survival odds to taking on world’s best at G4D Open Image source, Getty ImagesImage caption, Richie Willis is on familiar territory this week, having been a member at Celtic Manor for 25 years ByGareth VincentBBC Sport WalesPublished13 May 2026Richie Willis was given only a 10% chance of surviving after he was involved in a lorry accident on the old Severn Bridge.Twenty-seven years since looking down to see his leg torn off and his arm seriously damaged, Welshman Willis will strike the first tee shot in golf’s G4D Open on Friday.The G4D Open is one of the premier events for golfers with disabilities and will feature many of the world’s finest players.For Willis, 68, simply being in the field is remarkable given the trauma he has faced.Willis was on the road home to Wales when, on 22 December, 1999, what was later deemed a freak gust of wind sent the articulated lorry he was driving on to its side and into the central reservation.”I remember it all like it was yesterday,” Willis tells BBC Sport Wales.”After the impact I was on my back looking up thinking ‘I’ve got away with this’. Then I lifted my head up and [saw that] my leg was completely gone.”I remember [in the ambulance] they were saying I was losing blood pressure. They realised there was more wrong with me than just my leg and my arm.”Willis’ “worst injury”, it turned out, was a lacerated liver.”I didn’t realise they had me on the table and they had 40 pints of blood to keep me going,” he says.”They came to me afterwards and reported they had given me a 10% chance [of living]. They reported ‘obviously you wanted to live and that’s why you are still here’.”Willis, who was 42 at the time of his accident, spent five months in hospital.Yet barely a year after he was allowed home, he was back holding a golf club.Willis, from Ringland, Newport, had originally taken up the sport at the age of 35, having retired from a semi-professional football career which included a stint at Newport County AFC during their spell playing over the border in Moreton-in-Marsh.Willis’ golf handicap was 11 before his accident. Remarkably, he now plays off six.”I am really proud of that,” he says with a smile.”Golf has meant everything to me. I reported if I ever got injured and I couldn’t play sport, I wouldn’t really want to be here.”Golf means I have been able to compete, playing sport with friends and keeping fit to a degree. It’s great for my wellbeing as well.”Figure caption, Without golf ‘I wouldn’t want to be here’Preparation ‘not ideal’ for Baines Willis is one of many in the field at Celtic Manor this week with a remarkable back story.The only other Welsh competitor, Dylan Baines, was paralysed from the neck down after he was in a van involved in a road accident near Caerphilly when he was aged 22 in 2017.
Baines was told he would not walk again but, six weeks after the accident, he was suddenly able to move the big toe on his right foot.
Gradually, movement returned down the right side of his body and within a couple of years, he was playing golf.
“I am still affected on my left side,” Baines says.
“My left hand, tricep, hamstring, my left foot, none of that works. Luckily the right side does.”
Baines, who has a handicap of nine, plays with a velcro strap around his left hand to ensure it remains tight to the club.
He was not expecting to qualify for this year’s G4D Open, hence he had no concerns about spending six days on a stag do in Nashville last week.
“It was not ideal preparation,” he says.
“I was quite low down the reserve list. I came home and the next morning I had the email to say I had got in. I have been on the range and playing every day since.”
