When Adilson da Silva stood on the eighth tee at Seapoint in the final round of the 2024 OFX Irish Legends, he was six shots back and couldn’t buy a putt for love nor money.
14 holes later – including three playoff holes – he was sinking a birdie putt for victory.
You could say the odds weren’t in his favour when he’d seven played, but then again, the odds have been stacked against him his entire career.
Hailing from Santa Cruz, on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro, a sprawling metropolis on Brazil’s southeastern coast where the gap between the haves and the have nots is stark, da Silva wasn’t born into wealth and with limited means available, as soon as he was old enough, he began accompanying his brother to a nearby nine-hole golf course where they’d scour the terrain for golf balls to sell before being taken on as caddies.
Fate isn’t a doctrine that everybody subscribes to, but in da Silva’s case, it’s hard to argue against it because it was here, while working as a caddie at the age of 13, he first met Andy Edmondson, a Zimbabwean tobacco merchant who frequently made business trips to Santa Cruz.
“I met Andy and we became good friends,” da Silva recalled. “And a lot of times he was playing on his own so as I’d be caddying for him, he’d let me hit a couple of shots with his clubs and I think he saw some potential there because there were no lessons or anything like that and I was already hitting it quite nicely under the circumstances.
The seeds for da Silva’s enthusiasm for the game had already been sown, but since caddies weren’t permitted to play and actual golf clubs to use virtually impossible to come by locally, he’d resorted to seeking out trees with golf-club-shaped branches that he could cut and began hitting balls with those. Having an actual golf club in his hand of course made it much easier.
Over repeated trips, Edmondson and da Silva’s bond grew thicker, with the merchant becoming something of a father-figure and patron, buying da Silva his own set of golf clubs and an effective membership at the club, with a view to bringing Adilson back to Zimbabwe with him where his talents could be nurtured under the guidance of one of the top coaches in the game.
“It was like, ‘whoa, I’ve got 14 clubs now in the bag’, I don’t know what to do with so many clubs,” he laughs, “and he bought me a share in the club – in those days, you had to buy a share from a member who had more than one – and they gave me a paper certificate that confirmed I was a title holder and that I could play and practice there, because before that, you couldn’t even get onto the golf course unless you were caddying.
“So for that whole year, I just practiced, and having started with a nine-handicap, I got it down to two.”
And then came the next step on his long journey, as Edmondson held true to his word and brought da Silva to Zimbabwe where he set him up to work with Tim Price, brother of Nick who was on his way to becoming a three-time major winner and world number one.
But Edmondson was rarely there, constantly on business trips procuring tobacco, and da Silva was left to his own devices, almost 5,000 miles from family and home, and without a word of English. He was 18 years old.
“I’d never had a lesson,” da Silva explains, “all my improvement was natural, now I’m getting my first lesson with Tim and everything starts going pear-shaped because I can’t understand what he’s trying to tell me and he’s trying to get me to change my grip, my stance, everything and I couldn’t hit the ball, I was shanking it, doing a whole lot of bad stuff.”
Not for the last time, he faced a tough choice. Stay and follow his dream, however difficult it might be, or go back to Brazil and wave goodbye to golf. But the latter wasn’t really an option.
“My parents, they didn’t have money,” he recounts. “We were fortunate because they gave us what they could, but you had to work for everything. That’s why my brothers and I had to get jobs quite young, but it taught us some good things and to appreciate what you have and what you do.
“It was hard for me to go to Zimbabwe and leave friends, family, everybody behind and be there all by myself, but I had to get it together, otherwise I’ll go hungry and you’ve got to eat.”
And so, he threw himself into the former, staying up late at night with only an English-Portuguese dictionary for company, memorising words and phrases, anything he could think of to make his life and his lessons easier.
“That’s how I learned my English,” he says, “and luckily there were a group of youngsters there at Royal Harare Golf Club that I could go out on course with, practise with and try to talk to, so that helped me a lot too.”
Gradually, the situation improved, and one of the benefits of being home alone all the time was that he had nothing calling him back from the golf course.
“I used to be at the golf course pretty much the whole day because it’s just me by myself in the house there,” he recalls. “I used to go early, I’d go to the gym and from there I’d go to the course, staying until six or seven or whenever it got dark.”
All those hours continued to pay off, and several big amateur wins followed, including the prestigious Hans Merensky Open and the Transvaal Strokeplay, both in South Africa where the amateur scene continued to be an extremely competitive environment.
But Edmondson and he had set out goals and targets – this was no free ride – one of which was that he’d turn professional, and after four years, now aged 22, he felt he was ready take that next step and go out on his own. And it really was going out on his own, because Zimbabwe didn’t have a professional tour and it meant moving to South Africa, leaving the comfort and security of what had been his home away from home for four years, and starting afresh in a new city, with a new coach, and with new pressures. And the pressure was considerable as it was very much an all or nothing situation once he’d pulled the trigger and turned pro.
“In those days in South Africa, if you applied to play the Tour Q-School, you lose your amateur status,” he divulged. “So, if you didn’t make it through, you couldn’t play competitive golf; amateur and club competitions are gone, and you don’t have status so no professional tournaments either. It was complete punishment.”
Not for the first time, he found himself at a crossroads, and this time, he felt it was his own doing because, with the move to a new coach, he’d changed his swing shortly prior to Q-School, believing it had to improve to move into the pro ranks, but he hadn’t quite gotten to fully trust it.
“I don’t know why I did it,” he laments, 31 years later, “but yeah, I missed out and then I’m thinking, ‘what the hell are you doing here?’” With a full year to wait to try his luck at Q-School again, thoughts of returning home to Brazil – thoughts that had been commonplace for the first couple of years – began to creep back in. The da Silvas may not have had much, but they were a closeknit family, and naturally he missed his parents, his three brothers, cousins, everybody who made home, home.
“Back in those days there were no cell phones, no WhatsApp, you couldn’t see them, so I used to write a lot of letters, send them postcards, that kind of thing, but leaving the family and friends behind had been the most difficult thing,” he admits, but for four years, he’d been working towards a goal and he’d been making steady progress. Failing at Q-School was the first major stumbling block and he was left in limbo.
Fortunately, the decision was out of his hands.
“In those days, you needed a piece of paper to travel,” he recalls of a time when South Africa was transitioning out of Apartheid in a similar fashion to the way Zimbabwe had a decade earlier. “You needed these little tickets that you’d tear off and you’d keep the slip on your hands to be able to fly overseas. I’d left those in Zimbabwe in case I began to think I couldn’t take it anymore and wanted to go home.”
So, he stayed in Johannesburg, working by night as a waiter in a Mexican restaurant to be able to afford to eat and pay rent while he continued to graft by day, and when the following year’s Sunshine Tour – or the Southern Africa Tour as it was then called – Q-School came around, he was ready and made no mistake.
And once he had a card in his pocket, he never gave it up. Over the next 27-odd years, he became a mainstay of the Sunshine Tour, never once being forced to return to Q-School, and racking up a dozen victories and making a record-breaking 43 consecutive cuts along the way, and it might be the latter of those two achievements that’s the most impressive given the vastly contrasting nature of golf courses that play host to Sunshine Tour events.
But the game was changing, and da Silva was ageing. Always known as one of the straightest drivers in the game, more and more he began finding himself playing alongside 21 and 22-year-olds who were bombing the ball 330-plus off the tee. “I’d be hitting hybrid into par-4s and they’d be hitting lob wedge,” he chuckled.
But a milestone birthday was fast approaching. For most people, turning 50 is a landmark that they shy away from, but for golfers, it’s a new lease of life as doors that had previously been nailed shut begin to open a crack.
But having played his entire career on the Sunshine and Asian Tours with limited European Tour starts, the Legends Tour – previously known as the European Seniors Tour – wasn’t easy to get onto, particularly as the lingering aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic meant there would be no Legends Q-School until close to his 51st birthday.
So, he began writing letters asking for invitations, and he received a late call prior to the Riegler and Partner Legends in Austria, offering him a spot in the field. After a last-gasp scramble for visa and flights, he made it and finished third, thereby earning an invitation to the following event in Jersey which was a month later, where he finished fifth and gained minor category status.
Two months later, he won the Staysure PGA Seniors Championship, the Legends Tour’s flagship event, cementing his status for 2023 and he hasn’t looked back since. Now a seven-time Legends tournament winner, the OFX Irish Legends win in 2024 set him on the path to claiming the number one position in the year-ending Order of Merit rankings after finishing runner-up in 2022 and 2023.
Without having a career European Tour money exemption onto the Legends Tour, da Silva’s status was on a year-by-year basis, but by winning the Order of Merit, he’s guaranteed exempt for the next five seasons, which is no small matter.
From Santa Cruz to Zimbabwe, from Johannesburg to Seapoint, and just about everywhere in between, it’s been a long journey for da Silva and one that’s far from over. But of all the victories, all the major and minor triumphs, there’s one event that stands above them all.
In 2016, after a 112-year hiatus, golf returned to the Olympic Games with Rio the staging point for the greatest athletic show on the earth.
With the host nation guaranteed two places and da Silva the most decorated and highly-ranked Brazilian golfer of all time, he was virtually sure of his place, but he wanted to be there by merit, not because of his nationality.
“I was really determined to qualify on my own,” he said, “and for those two years of qualification, I played really well and I made it.” It wasn’t the first time he’d been back to Brazil to play, of course, but it was the first time he’d come back with the eyes of the golfing world firmly trained on Rio. Three days prior to the action kicking off, he was called into the tournament office.
“There are usually two reasons that you get called into the office,” he explains, “and neither one is good. It’s either gonna be a penalty or a fine, so I’m thinking ‘What have I done wrong?’ Then, I get in, and everybody’s in there – all the heads of the PGAs and all the heads of the golf world – and I’m just thinking, ‘wow, what’s going on?’
“Next thing, they say to me that I’ve been chosen to hit the opening tee shot of the Olympics after 112 years. I was sure they’d got the wrong guy because there were so many big name players there that deserved it so much more than me.
“And then I couldn’t sleep for the three days because it was such an honour and the Olympics was such a big deal for Brazil.”
And when the day finally came around and he climbed onto the first tee to hit a shot 112 years in the making, who was carrying his bag only Andy Edmondson. The Zimbabwean tobacco merchant who’d struck up a friendship with a 13-year-old caddie and the man that that 13-year-old had become were back where it all started, this time with the roles reversed.
“That was a really special moment,” da Silva says fondly. “He’d asked me the year before if he could caddy for me if I qualified for the Olympics, and he’s been such a big influence on my life – like a big brother – and there’s no way I’d be where I am now if he didn’t give me the chance he did in the beginning.
“I’m so thankful to him.”
Da Silva’s story is one of steadfast resilience, sheer determination and the power of opportunity, transporting a kid swinging golf-club-shaped tree branches in Santa Cruz to the first tee at the Olympic Games just up the road – it’s the story of a relentless pursuit of dreams against all odds, aided by the belief and support of a guiding star.
Though the story’s far from over, his legacy lies not in the trophies he’s won or the accolades he’s collected, but in the inspiration he offers to others daring to chase their improbable dreams, proving that with hard work and just a little fate, anything is possible.
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