What is adapted golf?
For these golfers, conviction is stronger than compassion.
3:43
(CNN) --
If you were asked to pick one sport to play hands-free, what would it be?
Soccer and athletics come to mind, but golf is unlikely to be high on the list.
However, Brandon Canesi, the self-proclaimed "World's Best No-Hands Golfer," might change your mind.
Born with no hands in Northfield, New Jersey, Canesi has been a pioneering online presence for adaptive golf since footage of his first hole-in-one went viral in 2018.
The feat came just months after Canesi started Hole High, a foundation with a clear mission: to inspire others to overcome life's limitations and spread the word about adaptive golf.
"A guy with no hands doesn't have to be really good at golf," he told CNN.
"So I thought it was something unique and I was going to make it my life just because of how passionate I was about the game."
Brandon Canesi is a man passionate about golf.
Credit: Brandon Canesi
club life
Canesi, who lives in Miami, plays with extra-long clubs.
By his own calculations, each of his clubs measures an average of 12 to 14 inches longer than standard size, peaking with his driver at 147cm.
In 2020, US Open champion Bryson DeChambeau made headlines when it emerged he was experimenting with a new 48-inch driver, the maximum length allowed for a golf shaft under the rules of the sport.
The shortest club in a golfer's bag, Canesi's putter is 6 inches longer than DeChambeau's driver.
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The reasons for his oversized equipment go back to his first experience in golf, when Canesi, visiting Miami with his grandfather, was faced with the task of handling an adult club too big for his six-year-old.
Instinctively, he opted for the more natural method, tucking the hilt of the club under his upper arm.
Now sponsored by Cobra Puma Golf, Canesi's current custom-built clubs are a far cry from the early prototypes piled up in his grandfather's basement, but his technique has hardly changed.
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Not everyone is so naturally suited to lengthened clubs, not even elite golfers.
When DeChambeau teeed off Canesi's clubs during a match between the two at the 2018 Shriners Children's Open, he teeed off as the reigning PGA Championship Long Drive champion.
If ever there was a warrant for a booming drive, it was DeChambeau, nicknamed "the scientist" for his willingness to push his limits and new technology.
"He took my driver," recalls Canesi.
"He got right under him and the ball went straight down and just hit the tee. It was hilarious."
"You have to accept who you are"
But in Canesi's experience, the unusual clubs in his bag aren't always the first thing people notice.
He has more to do with the nickname sewn on the bag itself, "Nubz" (nickname for a rookie).
Canesi explains that, when I was a child and played sports at school, the most frequently asked question, especially by adults, was: "Do you need help with this?
"They treated me like a baby, they cared about me... or they didn't expect me to be able to do anything," he explains.
"But I was like, 'Oh, I'm going to do it and I'm going to do it better than you think I could.' That kind of fuels my fire. I like that."
It is a self-confidence that has helped Canesi to overcome, and even enjoy, the occasional uncomfortable encounter at the club.
"What happens when you meet someone for the first time? When you're introduced to someone, you have to shake their hand," he explains.
"All I can do is stick my head out, and if they hold my hand and squeeze it hard, then they're confident and don't care. But a lot of them are hesitant. I laugh, it's always a funny situation... they look down and they don't know what to do, so it's like an awkward open hand or a fist bump."
"You have to own who you are," he adds.
"Some see it as a weakness, but I have made it my strength. You are who you want to be, and you are who you make yourself, no matter what you get."
Canesi is amused when he is underestimated.
Credit: Brandon Canesi
Competing, teaching, caddying and creating content for his TikTok account, Canesi has been something of an all-round golfer in recent years, but his favorite job is teaching young golfers, especially those with disabilities.
As part of his job at Trump National Doral Golf Club, Canesi assists with a weekly adaptive golf program run by the Rick Smith Golf Academy in collaboration with a nearby hospital.
His love of training, even amid his hectic schedule, was exemplified in a two-day stretch in October 2022, when Canesi ran a clinic for 60 double-arm amputees in Houston before racing to catch a flight to organize another. clinic for children with various disabilities at the Las Vegas Shriners Open the next day.
"I like to help people by that look on someone's face when you see that they intended to hit any shot by hand and they did it," Canesi said.
"Everybody who's had that feeling before knows it, it's the most addictive feeling in the world, the most satisfying...it can't get any better than that."
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Canesi's passion for teaching is rivaled only by his passion for competition.
Adaptive golf has different categories for different disabilities, and Canesi's, double arm deficiency, is one of the rarest in the game.
In the February United States Adaptive Golf Alliance (USAGA) rankings, Canesi and Andreas Brandenberger are the only two names on the dual disability category leaderboard.
Canesi is currently ranked 208th in the World Ranking of Golfers with Disabilities, though this position comes with the caveat that Canesi has only competed in a handful of ranked tournaments since he began playing adapted events in 2018.
However, Canesi is confident of being the best in the world in his category and is ranked number 1 in the United States.
"For me, it's just about being the best that I can be," he said.
"I'm not worried about being better than everyone else. But when I play, I always win my division."
In May 2022, Canesi traveled to windswept London to help his team triumph in the inaugural Cairns Cup, the biannual Ryder Cup-style golf event between the United States and Europe.
Two months later, he played in Pinehurst, North Carolina, in the first US Adaptive Open, organized by the United States Golf Association.
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One of Canesi's main goals is to free up his busy schedule to compete in more scoring events, in order to contribute to the flourishing growth of adapted golf.
For Canesi, last year's launch of the Golf for the Disabled (G4D) Tour, organized in conjunction with the DP World (European) Tour, was an "incredible" testimonial to this boom.
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Although he believes the European Disability Golf Association (EDGA) is "years ahead" of the United States when it comes to competitive tournaments and ranking systems, the increased professionalization he has seen in tournaments has given Canesi enormous confidence that things tend to improve.
And for Canesi, this is a great benefit for all parties involved, from sponsors to golfers around the world.
"The more people, the more publicity, the more lives we can change and the more we can inspire and help," he says.
"There is so much to learn from adaptive golf because every person who comes and registers here has things that you can't see and limitations that they have to adapt to.
"Watching us and the best of the best doing it, you won't find a purer form of inspiration."
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