World Ranking honours for Ann and why golf means so much…

The French player has risen to the top of the World Ranking for Stableford and tells us how golf has helped her physical and mental health after a personal trauma. 

When she first heard, Ann Van Acker refused to believe it. She had become Number One in the World Ranking (Stableford) after successful summer tournaments in France. Despite being intensively competitive on the course Ann doesn’t dwell on result sheets and statistics but there it was in black and white: “World Ranking for Golfers with Disability, Position 1: VAN ACKER, Ann; date: 22/6/25”.

But it was also a joyful moment. Golf has meant so much to Ann after taking it up following serious injury. She says: “I cannot believe I am Number One, that is why I rang to check. It is a great surprise, and if women and girls see that, and think about playing golf, that is also great isn’t it?”  

Ann, born in Belgium and long-time resident in Vannes, Brittany, will tell you of the impact golf can have on a person fighting back from being stuck in a hospital ward or laid up on the couch at home. 

This former physiotherapist had been a tennis player for many years before becoming completely absorbed in the discipline and skill of ‘dressage’, the Olympic equestrian sport where rider and horse act as one in a series of movements of agility and self control. Riding a favourite horse ‘Veuliah’ (named after an angel, a prized ‘Connemara’ horse from the West of Ireland), this magical combination of horse and rider won many trophies together over the years. 

“When the doctor told me, it’s finished, you can’t ride any more, it was very hard for me to take,” explains Ann. “Riding well, the training and the competitions had been all-consuming, and you share such a strong bond with the horse. To learn I couldn’t carry on, it was devastating.”

A bad fall from the saddle one day in 2017 had meant two smashed ankles, her right ankle needing 11 casts and three separate surgeries. Further surgery led to neurological complications in her back and pelvis, made more dangerous by a severe infection that threatened Ann’s life. Many hospital stays and visits as an in-patient were a constant between 2017 and 2021. Today her right ankle cannot bend, and her movement and balance are compromised.

But as a former ‘physio’ and being naturally competitive, Ann says: “I would learn to never give up.” Over the next two years she worked hard to get fitter and stronger and having had a couple of false starts in golf in the past she joined her home club Golf de Baden in 2022 and played her first G4D (golf for the disabled) tournament in the summer of 2023. 

“Spending so much time in hospital and rehabilitation I dreamed of being outside and enjoying the fresh air and nature again and it is fantastic that golf has given this back to me,” says Ann.  

“Just playing golf can move me so much. It’s just a small ball there on the ground but the impact it has, how it has changed my life, is unbelievable.

“I love the game today, I play around 15 hours every week, I love to think about the shots. I was told by my coach that scoring is often achieved from ’80 metres in’ and I enjoy this part of my game; pitching and chipping onto the green and it is great when you chip in, very exciting! 

“I would play more each week but because of my condition I can get inflammation on the arms and legs and it can be painful so I have to be careful.” 

Ann has worked hard to create a reliable swing but having played for just two years it is a work in progress (she is currently off a 31 Handicap Index). Also, balance is far from straightforward with her ankle and leg issues. It is difficult for her to balance in a bunker on the slopes of sand and so she is not a lover of the sand. By coincidence she had enjoyed watching the likes of Bernhard Langer and Seve Ballesteros on TV when young in Belgium and now wishes she could play those bunker shots like Seve. 

“I tell people to teach me never to go in the bunkers,” she jokes. “But I have to learn to have more confidence in myself and hit over the bunkers, to trust my swing.”

Ann propelled herself up the World Rankings for Stableford by winning her Net division at the French National Championship in May at Golf de Saint Laurent, and the Stableford trophy at her home course in the 2025 Grand Prix Handi-valide De Baden in June. 

Her next focus is to try to control her emotions on the course better. The combination of her competitiveness and her intense desire to hit her shots well has led to her shouting with frustration and getting upset, leaving her to feel ashamed afterwards. 

In her recent tournament at Golf de Baden she was angry with herself for throwing a golf club to the floor in frustration (receiving a warning from a referee) and was leaving the course early, getting into her car to go home instead of staying, when an inner feeling told her to go back to the clubhouse. Doing so, having not looked at the scoreboard in her downcast mood, she found she had actually won her section, and received the applause from other players present to create a very different emotion for her, one of achievement and happiness.    

“I was so ashamed so I was about to leave, but then to return it felt wonderful. I have to learn to control my emotions and accept my mistakes. Golf is a very good sport for me mentally. I am learning so much about myself. I see faces of myself that are deep inside of me and it can be challenging.

“I have learned that in riding a horse it is ‘you and the horse’, but in golf it is ‘you and you’.”

Ann says she is very grateful to her sponsor Stefan Muller for helping her with the costs of G4D tournament play and now as Number One in the world she is looking at the schedule to see when she can next play in an EDGA-supported tournament.  

“My message is never give up, never give up, and I think that is true both in golf and life. I remember that I nearly died but had to battle through. Remember that it can get better.

“If we can inspire others, that’s all that matters.”

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