While many 2-year-olds are playing with toys and chasing butterflies, this South African professional golfer was fighting for his life. Christiaan Bezuidenhout, who played at the Royal Montreal for the 2024 Presidents Cup, has quite a horrifying story from when he was a kid. When the golfer was two years old, his innocent curiosity almost cost him his life.

The story goes back to 1996, when while playing at a park with his parents, he stumbled upon a bottle that looked like it had soda in it, as an innocent kid, he took a sip, and to everyone’s surprise, it was not at all what he thought. “I was playing outside when I picked up a random Coke bottle. I took a drink of it thinking it was indeed Coke; however, it actually contained rat poison,” said the golfer per the National Club Golfer.

The golfer still refers to the day as a moment that changed his life forever. As one can imagine, the consequences were devastating. The poison spread over his nervous system and left him with lifelong stuttering and speech difficulties. “As a result of that moment of naivety, I almost died. The hospital had to pump my whole stomach to get rid of all the poison, but the poison affected the whole nervous system in my body,”  he said, recalling the most horrifying day of his life.

As he grew up, Bezuidenhout had to go through brutal teasing and bullying because of his stuttering problems. And when nothing was working out for the golfer, the game of golf came to his rescue, and he found refuge on the golf course. Because of his problems with speaking, the golfer faced severe anxiety, which affected his game in the beginning.

Christiaan Bezuidenhout used medication to be more confident

The golfer was tired of feeling inferior, so at the age of 14, Bezuidenhout started taking beta-blockers, which proved to be a game-changer for him. The medication helped him manage his stutter-related anxiety since he was a teenager. “I used the medication for seven years during my amateur days, which helped me become more confident and enjoy my life again,”  he said.

However, his golf career almost ended at 16 due to a misunderstanding about his medication. During the 2014 British Amateur, Bezuidenhout was drug tested and was suspended for using beta blockers, despite him telling the officials the reasons he takes them. This time was extremely challenging for the golfer, as he was facing accusations of performance enhancement, among other claims. “It felt like my life was over,” he said, recalling that time.

But everything worked out for the golfer in the end, and his two-year ban was reduced to nine months. He was cleared of performance-enhancing allegations and could get on the course again. Bezuidenhout then excelled on South Africa’s Sunshine Tour and earned Rookie of the Year, which helped him secure his European Tour card in 2017, and the rest is history. \

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