Future goals will no doubt follow but for now the double-header of G4D Tour events that await Chris Willis represents the pinnacle of competition as he knows it.
The Canadian, who has VACTERL syndrome, an association of birth defects, has played in all three editions of The G4D Open since its inception in 2023, but never in a limited-field event.
But that all changes on Sunday, when he tees it up the first of back-to-back two-day tournaments for the world’s leading golfers with a disability as the Amgen Irish Open returns to the G4D Tour schedule for the first time since 2022.
It was that same year, when the G4D Tour was launched, that Willis - now the World Number 13 in the Gross Rankings - first started competing in all abilities events.
Since then, he has landed a series of individual accolades, including back-to-back Canadian All-Abilities Championships in 2023 and 2024 to be ranked sufficiently to earn his way to a spot in the ten-player mixed field at this week’s G4D Tour stop at The K Club in Ireland.
“This is what I've been working towards since I started disability golf in 2022,” said Willis, 44.
“The idea that there is a series of events that lead to a [season-ending] tour championship was very motivating and an exciting prospect.
“It has definitely made me change around my life and make myself available for these tournaments.”
Across his three starts in The G4D Open – staged in partnership between The R&A and the DP World Tour – Willis has finished 12th in both 2023 and 2025, either side of a third-place finish in 2023.
Through each appearance, he has gained invaluable learnings about how best he can manage his disabilities – many of which are invisible such as losses of concentration and emotional presence.
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While it is that struggle with focus that he says is his most challenging disability, his movement with his hands is the most “irritating”. Born with deformed thumbs, his underdeveloped left thumb was removed and replaced with another fashioned from his index finger by a surgeon when he was five.
“I will do something that I feel is really good enough, but my club face will close and shut on me,” he said of the limitations he faces with his golf swing.
“It feels quite irritating that I have done everything that I could and yet I am still hitting it left of the green and into the rough.
“But I played a lot of hockey, squash and tennis as a kid so I have the ability to adjust my hands as I hit the ball, so I am very fortunate with that.
“But definitely the movements with my hands are the imbalances I have in my swing, they are very irritating and they do stop me from scoring very well.
“I tend to have quite a few shots through the round that don’t quite work out, putting me in a tough position and short game is tough for me with my hands.”
With a strong international field assembled in Ireland, including leading home star Brendan Lawlor, the victory that is required to earn a spot at the season-ending G4D Tour Series Finale @ Rolex Grand Final in Mallorca later this year is no easy task.
But with a visit to Wentworth Club to follow next, during the week of the DP World Tour’s prestigious BMW PGA Championship, Willis – a special education teacher with more than 17 years' experience with the Toronto District School Board – is excited at what promises to be a “really special trip”.
This is only emphasised by fellow Canadian Kurtis Barkley, who first made Willis aware of the G4D Tour, also being in the fields over the next two weeks, with the friendship between players being one of the great attributes of the sport.
“It’s very special that he [Kurtis] is in the first G4D Tour event that I have qualified for since he was the first who mentioned it to me and opened the door in my imagination to what I could possibly do,” said Willis.
Indebted to skills he learned during a five-day EDGA Player Development Camp in Portugal in 2024 – which the European Tour group helps to fund year on year – Willis is better prepared for the attention, including media commitments, that now come with playing on the G4D Tour.
Among those to have also attended that player development camp are France’s Thomas Colombel, who will make his first start in a regular G4D Tour event at Wentworth, and South Africa’s Daniel Slabbert, winner at the Betfred British Masters on his debut earlier in August.
“The common cause that we have unites us. The common struggle, even though it might be a different struggle, unites us,” said Willis.
He added: “One of the main effects of my disabilities is to stay at home, not really want to go out socially, or when I do it can become more intense than it might for most people.
“It’s almost therapeutic in a sense that you come and you’re surrounded by people who are so positive with you. There’s no hiding, no pain, feeling of your disability.
“A common, yet perhaps unique, theme of all adaptive tournaments is that they have a very high level of competition, but also a high level of camaraderie.”
With G4D Tour events held in the same week as events on the DP World Tour, Willis and his fellow competitors will share the same stage as leading lights of the able-bodied game such as Rory McIlroy.
While that prospect is one Willis could never have foreseen when he first started competing in disability events, the ever-growing focus on inclusion has helped him meet two of his sporting heroes.
At the 2023 ISPS HANDA All-Abilities Competition, held alongside the World Champions Cup which featured PGA TOUR Champions golfers, Willis represented Team International and came face to face with Ernie Els, upon whom he first modelled his golf swing, and Jim Furyk.
"On the Pro-Am day, I got a chance to take some photos with the players and ask for a photo with Ernie," he recalled.
"He gave me his putter and I got to show him some of the things that I have discovered I need to do with my grip. Both Ernie and Jim were very inquisitive, asking questions and listening intently.
"It was a wonderful couple of minutes with two of the best golfers of all time. It really filled my cup."
It may only be three years since Willis first started playing disability golf, but there have been plenty memories made since, with the latest of those just around the corner.
