INSIDE THE ROPES

In golf, 'Professor Bruiners' has tried it all. When it's worked to perfection, he's won – twice on the Sunshine Tour and came close to winning on the DP World Tour as well. But for the most part, Bruiners will tell you he has learnt lessons.

Some of them have been very hard, such as the car accident that almost ended his career and left him bedridden for six months. 'I told my dad there was no point to my life if I couldn't play golf again. My parents had to take me to the bathroom.'

Others' tragic, such as the time he witnessed the trauma of a friend's brother committing suicide, arriving at the scene just too late to help. 'He literally died in my arms. I couldn't sleep for weeks after going through something like that.'

He's had great benefactors, like Dr Hasso Plattner, who first believed in his potential and put him on this path. But he's also lost sponsors at low times in his career.

'I wouldn't change anything,' he says at this point in his career. 'I wouldn't change every cut I've missed, because I've learnt so much. Everybody wants success, but I wouldn't change one thing about my life.

'I never thought I'd say that, but everything that's happened to me has been for a reason. I've made peace with who I am, and how I hit a golf ball. It's the hardest thing to do for anyone. There is nothing more difficult in professional golf than the acceptance of who you are and how you swing a golf club.'

And that's where Bruiners now finds himself. Playing the game his way. Expressing himself fully through golf.

'It's been crazy how many changes and other things I've gone through. I reached such a high when I won and felt such peace, but I was also so busy working on things and got lost in changing equipment and finding what was right for me. I learnt so much from it, and I'm grateful for that, but I needed to go back to what was familiar for me.

Gallery below

'It's slowly but surely getting back to what I was. Everyone else is getting better and I just need to find my own way back to what I know is right. Sometimes you also get to a point where what you do is enough, and you aren't really going to get much better. It's that realisation that this is what I have in me, and if on the day it's not good enough then so be it, but that's what I have. I was constantly searching too much to get to that next level.

'I need to stay true to who I am. I changed the way I played to match the equipment I wanted to use, and now I need to get back to what I do naturally and which suits me. The best golf I've ever played is when my golf has expressed who I am. I think that's the most dangerous you can be.'

It's been an incredible 20-year journey for one of the most engaging, intelligent and decent human beings you will find on the Sunshine Tour. A man with such a deep hunger to learn about the game and who doesn't mind if he fails – as long as he learns something. Even if it's just something he can give to a friend on the driving range, or someone he coaches.

Bruiners has his stories, and his scars, and his triumphs. He owns them all. And when he tells it to you, he has you laughing, crying and gasping in shock at the same time.

'I'm grateful that I'm still swinging it with everything I have,' says the Professor.

End of lesson.