{"id":350984,"date":"2023-12-02T03:46:55","date_gmt":"2023-12-02T04:46:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=350984"},"modified":"2023-12-02T07:02:27","modified_gmt":"2023-12-02T07:02:27","slug":"nearly-killed-in-a-car-crash-hes-now-an-aussie-champ","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=350984","title":{"rendered":"Nearly killed in a car crash, he's now an Aussie champ"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lachlan Wood was on his way to become a champion golfer<\/a> when he suffered critical injuries in a horror car crash at 16.<\/p>\n

From the passenger seat, the crash broke 12 bones – several of which were shattered – and his left leg would eventually heal some 4cm shorter than his right.<\/p>\n

But after dozens of operations and a decade-long break from the sport, Wood on Saturday afternoon became the first Australian to win the Australian All-Abilities Open<\/a>.<\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/strong> Teen shocks Aus Open field with rare albatross<\/strong><\/a>\ufeff<\/strong><\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/strong> F1 musical chairs complete after Williams signing<\/strong><\/a>\ufeff<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/strong> Kyrgios thanks great for 'spotting signs' of harm<\/strong><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

He won by a single shot over Irishman Brendan Lawlor and Cameron Pollard.\ufeff<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Lachlan<\/p>\n

All three players began the last round at The Australian tied, and remained separated by only a handful of strokes with seven holes to play.<\/p>\n

Wood, 32, made a bogey from a plugged lie on the 14th – the ball was embedded below the surface of a bunker – before two late birdies on 16 and 18 clinched it for him.<\/p>\n

"It was red hot … it was close the whole way and then one by one I slowly got some breathing room and got just enough on the back nine," he said.<\/p>\n

\"Lachlan<\/p>\n

"Got an unlucky plug, but then they three-putted and from there it was just hang on."<\/p>\n

It's been an incredible 12-month period for Wood. This time last year, he had no involvement in the all-abilities golf scene, but has rocketed to the top of the Australian all-abilities rankings, and is No.15 in the world.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Watch the 2023 Australian Open golf live and free from November 30 on Nine and<\/strong><\/em> 9Now<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

"I was no one, I had no world ranking … I'd only just heard about how to get into the system," he said.<\/p>\n

"I'd known about it and watched it for years, but I never knew how to get into the system."<\/p>\n

\"Lee<\/p>\n

Wood hopes to play on the European PGA's G4D Tour (Golf for the Disabled) in 2024, but said the financial limitations of travel to and from Europe will put a big dampener on those aspirations.<\/p>\n

"Hopefully I can scrape into some events – obviously the G4D Open I'd love to get to, but obviously financial difficulties make it tricky," he said.<\/p>\n

"It's such an expensive event and so far away, but yeah, chasing world ranking points, you've got to go overseas. It is financially expensive."<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lachlan Wood was on his way to become a champion golfer when he suffered critical injuries in a horror car crash at 16. From the […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":350986,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350984"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=350984"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350984\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":350989,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350984\/revisions\/350989"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/350986"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=350984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=350984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=350984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}