By Rubin E. Grant
When war broke out in Ukraine last year, Alex Fourie wanted to return to his homeland to join the fight against Russia, even though he doesn’t have a right arm.
“I don’t know what I could have done with just one arm,” Fourie said, “but I was ready to go over and fight. It’s definitely heartbreaking watching my friends being bombed and struggling.”
His friends in Ukraine persuaded him to remain in Alabama because he could do more for his countrymen from afar, especially orphans.
Fourie already was supporting charity for orphanages called Hope Now in the Cherkassy Region of central Ukraine. So, he decided to stay home in Hoover and sell T-shirts through his charity, Single Hand Golf, with 100% of the proceeds going to Hope Now.
“My buddy told me I had a platform and to use it,” Fourie said. “I’ve been more effective doing that. We’ve sold T-shirts and had fundraisers. We have raised almost $60,000 and moved 350 orphans out of Ukraine. It’s been a privilege for me to be able to help.”
Fourie was born in 1992 in the Cherkassy Region with only a left arm as well as a cleft lip and palate due to the damaging effects of radiation from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986. The radiation seeped into the rivers near Fourie’s hometown of Zvenyhorodka, affecting his birth mom.
As a result, Fourie, 29, has undergone 26 surgeries in his lifetime.
“I’ve had surgeries to my nose, face and cleft lip,” he said. “I had my last one in November, so I’m done with surgeries for now.
“My one arm is an exception. I had to figure out a way to live with it.”
Fourie, a recently divorced father of a 2-year daughter, Lila, never knew his biological parents. They gave up custody of him at the hospital immediately after his birth. He spent the early years of his life in orphanages, including Hope Now.
At the age of 7, he was adopted by the Rev. Anton Fourie and his wife, Elizabeth, who were South African missionaries serving in Alabama. At the time of his adoption, in 1999, Fourie weighed only 35 pounds and ate soup for nearly every meal.
After arriving in his new country, in an effort to gain some weight quickly, Fourie said he devoured three quarter-pounders at McDonald’s for his first American meal.
A Lasting Love Affair
During his first week in Alabama, Anton Fourie put a golf club in Fourie’s hand and that eventually changed his life.
While growing up, he played a variety of sports, including tennis, soccer, and football, as the kicker, at Shades Mountain Christian High School. But golf became the game he loved.
“It’s the closest thing to real life I can think of,” Fourie said. “You can have bad breaks and good shots and good breaks and bad shots, and you have to be able to control how you deal with them just like you do in life.”
Fourie has become an accomplished golfer. He played in the No. 2 spot at Shades Mountain as a senior and eventually became a club pro in Knoxville, Tennessee, before moving back to Alabama late last year as an honorary member at Woodward Golf & Country Club in Bessemer.
He is a level one PGA golf instructor and the No. 1 one-arm golfer in the United States, according to the U.S. Adaptive Golf Alliance. He also is level one certified for the Titleist Performance Institute and associate member of the Titleist Performance Institute.
Three years ago, he started competing in North America One-Arm Golfers Association and USGA tournaments. Last year, he finished as runner-up at the 2021 Georgia State Golf Association Adaptive Open, and last July he competed in the USGA’s inaugural U.S. Adaptive Open at Pinehurst in North Carolina.
This weekend he will compete in the NAOAGA Winter Regional at The Club at River Wilderness in Parrish, Florida, near Tampa.
“I’m trying to pick up a couple of sponsorships during the NAOAGA Winter Regional,” Fourie said.
Although he still has his day job of selling roofs for Lightspeed Construction, Fourie’s passion and mission is to inspire and teach kids with adaptive needs to love, learn and grow in golf. He said providing that opportunity through adaptive clinics promotes competition, recreation and physical and emotional rehabilitation.
The mottos on his website are “One arm, zero handicap” and “Single-handedly growing the game.”
“My whole goal is to grow disabled golf,” Fourie said.
For more info about Fourie’s charity, visit singlehandgolf.com.
