Golf pro leading 66-strong run team

Sep 24 2008 by Tim Taylor, The Journal

THE bionic man of the Bupa Great North Run, Kevin Jackson, is defying two potentially career-threatening injuries by running the 13.1 miles from Newcastle to South Shields on October 5 to raise funds for a charity close to his heart.

On schoolboy forms as a wannabe Premiership footballer with Southampton – at a time in the mid-1980s when future England internationals Alan Shearer and Kevin Phillips were at the club in the early stages of their careers – Jackson never made it to the big time.

When he switched to golf, and later qualified as a PGA club professional in 1995, he was such a success at his new job it seemed it would all be plain sailing.

But in 2003, Jackson was struck down by what was to become two years of severe back pain so disabling he was reduced to sleeping on the floor.

Hardly had he made a recovery – and was then promoted to head professional at the Ramside Hall Golf Club in Durham City – than he wrecked his anterior cruciate ligament playing five-a-side football.

Again he bounced back, after months of painstaking rehabilitation, this time with the help of a brace to support his knee.

Yet no sooner had Jackson, who lives in Woodstone Village, near Chester-le-Street, discarded the brace than he was hit by a body-blow of a different nature. A close relative was diagnosed with Crohn’s and Colitis, two illnesses which are both forms of inflammatory bowel disease.

Jackson, 36, will be running in the GNR for the National Association for Colitis and Crohn’s Disease, will be joined by his 17-year-old son Sam, a student at Durham Sixth Form College, and Richard Dodds, who is on a student placement with Ramside Hall’s golf department.

Jackson said: “Like Sam and myself, Richard has a family member who has the same illness and Sam’s college are backing us up big time.

“There will be 64 staff and pupils from Durham Sixth Form College with us on the Great North Run. That makes 66 including Richard and me from Ramside Hall and we are hoping to raise thousands of pounds, on the understanding that all the money will go to the North East rather than to any central funding.”

Jackson, who recently was appointed to a new panel of five Durham County Golf Union coaches, is legendary in the sport not only for his golf teaching skills but also for his sunny disposition.

Yet it takes a special kind of character to keep battling on and maintain a happy front through such morale-sapping circumstances.

“You have no choice,” said Jackson. “Whatever hand fate deals you, you have to get on with your life and your job. You’ve got to earn a living to provide for your family.

“There is no point in moaning. You have to crack on with it. Yes I’m determined, but what is the alternative? You have to deal the best you can with whatever happens.”

Anybody who wants to support the fight against Colitis and Crohn’s Disease can ring Kevin Jackson on (07904) 033678.