From sleeping on a golf course to turning pro: How Issa Nlareb rediscovered his love of the game after illness

Watching Issa Nlareb’s swing, you’d never know he didn’t take a golf lesson until five years after turning professional. For 13 years, observing others and reading two-time major champion Greg Norman’s book were the closest things the Cameroonian had to formal instruction.

Nlareb was just 11 years old when his mom died. Living on the streets near a golf course, he began collecting balls to earn money to survive, eventually picking up the game himself and becoming a caddie. However, his life dramatically changed in 2018 when he contracted bacterial meningitis while at a tournament in Egypt.

The golfer developed sepsis, fell into a coma and required the amputation of both legs and most of his fingers. He wasn’t sure he’d ever play the sport again.

Finding golf

Nlareb lived with his dad and stepmom in a house near Yaoundé Golf Club in Cameroon’s capital after his mother’s death, leaving school and taking care of four step-siblings before running away from home a year later.

Eleven years old, “pissed off” at the situation and living on the streets, most nights he was picked up by the police and brought in to sleep in the station. One evening, though, he ran.

“I hid myself in the golf course. When I stand up in the morning in the golf course, I was looking around me and I found a golf ball. And I took two golf balls, I went out, and I see the golf course. When I see the golf course, I was like, ‘Wow,’” Nlareb said.

Impressed by the scale and grandeur of the course and thinking the balls belonged to the players on the hole, he washed and offered them to the men. They gave him a dollar in return.

Davou handed him a three iron – not an easy club for even a more seasoned golfer. But Nlareb was up for the challenge and made it onto the green following the path he advised Davou to take. His success earned him his first golf club – that hard-to-hit three iron.

Nlareb continued collecting and cleaning balls, practicing with his iron and developed friendships with the golfers. He often helped players aim shots and find their balls on the hilly course.