Metro Roundup: Local golf pro honored at Journey of Hope; Biggins ‘blown away’ by selection

Chris Biggins played sports his whole life.

There was baseball and soccer, but he couldn’t run the fastest. Golf worked the best.

“Golf was the sport that my disability affected me the least, so that’s what I gravitated toward,” Biggins said.

Biggins was born with cerebral palsy, a group of muscular and neurological conditions that affect a person’s ability to move and maintain posture and balance. Biggins might struggle at times with balance on the golf course, but he plays the game mostly like other able-bodied golfers. Only he’s better.

“He’s an incredible person and he’s an incredible athlete,” said Country Club of Birmingham Director of Golf Eric Eshleman. “I’ve said that I can’t beat him in ping pong, can’t outshoot him in basketball, can’t beat him to the bottom of a ski slope. He’s got a zest and zeal for life. He’ll take on anything. No challenge is too big.”

That zest, that no-challenge-is-too-big attitude, are huge reasons why Biggins was named this year’s Journey of Hope honoree by United Ability, which provides services connecting people with disabilities to their communities and empowering individuals to live full and meaningful lives. Biggins was honored Aug. 20 at an event at Red Mountain Theatre.

“I’m blown away by it, especially because of seeing the list of honorees before me and how incredible those people are,” said Biggins, who serves on the United Ability Junior Board. “It puts me in amazing company. I feel some sort of responsibility because they chose me for a reason, and I have to live up to the expectations of what an honoree should be like and how to help the organization. There’s a lot of pride in it, but also a lot of responsibility.”

Biggins, a Maryland native, has been at the Country Club of Birmingham since 2012. He spent three summers as a college intern before becoming a full-time employee in 2014. His college, Methodist University in North Carolina, wanted him to intern at four golf courses, but he was granted an exemption to continue coming to Birmingham because of the advantages United Ability provided him.

“It was a match made in heaven,” he said.

Biggins is the director of player development and the head coach of the junior golf program at the Country Club of Birmingham. He’s also currently the fourth-ranked player in the world, according to the World Ranking for Golfers with Disability. He is the top-ranked American. He recently finished 11th in the U.S. Adaptive Open at Pinehurst in North Carolina. He won the 2019 U.S. Disabled Golfers Open in Virginia and shot a career-best 63 last year in the final round to win the Georgia State Golf Association Adaptive Golf Championship by 12 strokes.

His personal on-course goal is to be the top-ranked disabled golfer in the world. He also wants to win next year’s U.S. Adaptive Open, which will again be at Pinehurst.

“Now, more than ever, I’m motivated to win that event next year and improve and win on that grand stage,” Biggins said.

His favorite part of golf, of Birmingham, however, is running the junior program at the Country Club of Birmingham. Nearly 250 young golfers competed in last year’s junior club championship, a massive number. Teaching the game is what he loves.

“That’s what makes it so rewarding for me,” Biggins said. “Golf is most fun as a junior. That’s when joy is at its purest.”

His goal is to make the game as fun as possible to help junior golfers improve. Having fun leads to better performance. His “No excuses” and “Fail like a champion” catchphrases motivate them.

“In tournaments, yes, I can show them that it is possible to play at a high level with a disability, but just being able to introduce the game that has made my life so special has been something that is incredibly rewarding,” he said. “The biggest impact I can have is helping them find love for sports like I did, because sports are so important for people with disabilities.”

There have been failures along the way. Failing to play team sports. Failing to make a high school baseball team. Failing to win golf tournaments or earn a college scholarship. After each failure, though, the fire inside only burnt brighter.

“That’s what really pushed me to become great and be where I am now,” Biggins said. “If everything was great when I was younger, I probably would have relaxed and been OK with how I was. But because I had those failures, it inspired me to get better. That’s what led me to improve. So, when my juniors, my students, fail, we turn that into a positive experience where they go and get better as opposed to something that knocks them down.”

Eshleman has seen Biggins provide that motivation.

“I think his impact will be felt, which is probably even more important, in the next 20 or 30 years, when all these kids are adults and are single-digit handicap golfers that carry a really nice golf game through life,” Eshleman said. “They’re always going to look back and remember being taught by Chris Biggins as a kid.”

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