"My story is very long, I've had three lives."
For many people that would sound like a brag, a statement of hyperbole, a 'look how interesting I am' to separate a person from the crowd.
But Issa Nlareb, who plays in this week's G4D Tour Series Finale @ Rolex Grand Final (Gross), is at the very least in the third act of one remarkable life at the age of just 35.
That third act is what has brought him to Club de Golf Alcanada: a career as a G4D Tour player due to a bout of bacterial meningitis in 2018 that saw him become a double amputee below the knee and lose several fingers.
The first act began with his mother in his homeland of Cameroon, where he was one of seven boys in the family and learned to sell fish at the age of ten before tragedy struck.
When he was 11, his mother passed away, setting in motion a train of events that would eventually lead him to golf.
"In 2000, my (step)dad had a second wife with three children where I get to support in our small house," Nlareb told the DP World Tour's Life on Tour podcast presented by Buffalo Trace.
"After a year, I was like, 'this is too much for me. I've got to go away'. So I took my things and all my stuff, I went back in the street, I lived in the street for three years.
"One day I was arrested by the police. Second day they leave me out, third day they hurt me and one day I decided I won't go back there. I run and I hide myself in the golf course.
"So when I wake up in the morning, I found some balls at my feet and I was like 'what is this?' But I took two of them and I started playing with them. When I went out in the bush, I saw the golf course, I saw the green everywhere and I say, 'wow, where am I now? I'm in the paradise or I'm there yesterday?'.
"Just a few minutes after I see people playing, people coming down because Yaoundé is the town of seven hills. I see them and I think I've got their ball and no, they had their ball. But I take the ball, I go to give it them back and one of them gives me a dollar.
"And I was like, 'wow. I live in the street three years and no one gives me anything. Just for two balls I picked up in the morning, they just gave me a dollar'.
"That was my business starting. And I picked up balls for three, four years and I turned caddie, after caddie I turned pro."
Pro was act two.
After playing events on his home continent of Africa with some success, he decided to make the move to Europe to try and further his career, entering the Qualifying School for the Alps Tour.
With limited starts on the Alps Tour in 2017, his success in Africa continued and it was at an Alps Tour event on his home continent that tragedy would strike again.
At the Ein Bay Open in Egypt at the start of the 2018 Alps tour season, Nlareb developed bacterial meningitis which led to sepsis.
"I was in a coma for five days," he said. "After five days I wake up and I can't move my head, I can't do anything. After a month I'm back in Cameroon and my stepmum helps me fly to Belgium but they say they cannot do anything and take my extremities."
And so follows act three, a part of Nlareb's life that sees him still compete on the Alps Tour alongside G4D events while also coaching.
In 2021, he returned to the Ein Bay Open and incredibly made the cut before beginning his jorney with EDGA in all abilities golf in 2023, soon moving into the top ten in the world and earning a G4D Tour debut at the G4D Tour @ ISPS HANDA World Invitational presented by AVIV Clinics.
His second event came at Wentworth Club two months ago at the G4D Tour @ BMW PGA Championship (Gross) and he now makes his debut at the season finale having switched his golfing allegiance to France.
It has been a long and remarkable journey to this point for Nlareb and he knows he could not have done it without the support of his family.
It was his daughter Malika who encouraged him to use a velcro strap to attach his glove and his club, allowing him to harness more power, an experiment that bore fruit in a nighttime trip to the driving range.
But he gives most credit to his stepmother, who helped him travel to Spain for Alps Tour Qualifying School, Belgium for medical treatment and has been of support in many other ways in his life and career.
"One person in my life is my stepmum changing my life," said Nlareb, revealing she is a huge Tommy Fleetwood fan.
"When I arrived to practise (at Wentworth)... I said to may caddie 'this is Tommy, I know this guy, he is the next son of my mother'.
"I run to him, I greet him, I have a good time. He is a super guy and we talked together. I called my mum, my mum had a video with him and started crying on the phone."
Sharing a range with the FedEx Cup champion, Nlareb has come an awful long way from the teenager selling lost balls to make ends meet in Yaoundé.
How long act three will last or if there will be a fourth act to his story is anyone's guess but one thing is for sure, we'll all be watching and rooting for Issa Nlareb.
