TONY JOHNSTONE turned 50 recently, but what he is really celebrating is returning to competitive golf and making his debut on the European Seniors Tour today after a remarkable recovery from the destructive process of multiple sclerosis. The European Tour veteran and Sky analyst thought he would never play golf again two years ago, when the illness was diagnosed, but he has fought his way back with enormous courage.

It all came as a terrible blow to the Zimbabwe-born player who had exempt status on the European Tour for 24 successive years from 1980 to 2003, when he collected six victories in addition to his 16 on the Sunshine Tour in southern Africa. Playing alongside Mark McNulty, he represented Zimbabwe in seven World Cups and still prides himself on his superb bunker play.

Johnstone first realised he was not well in 2003, when he made only one cut. “I was an absolute shambles and had to walk in off the course a couple of times,” he said. “My coordination was terrible and I had a tingling in my left hand. I forgot my son’s name, which was really awful, and I’d constantly repeat myself. I’d go out in the car and then forget where I was going and, at my lowest ebb, I didn’t know what I’d said 20 seconds ago. As for the golf, if you’d asked me to hit a ball into the Grand Canyon, I’d have missed. I don’t think I could have hit my foot with a club.”

Fearing he may have a tumour or even have suffered a stroke, Johnstone sought medical advice and was initially thought to have a viral infection and was put on a course of steroid treatment. When that did not help, he had an MRI scan and was shattered to be told by the neurologist that he had MS. “It was a dreadful shock and I just went and sat in the car and cried,” he said. “He told me to forget about being a tour professional but that was all I knew.

“My wife, Karen, and I decided we would do everything to prove the specialists wrong. And then I struck it lucky in 2004, when I was given the last and 120th place in a trial for the experimental drug treatment, Campath-1H, at Addenbrookes Hospital in Cambridge. It was a risk we felt we had to take.

“Basically, MS is an inflammatory disease of the central nervous system and this drug works like rebooting the computer. It is also used in organ transplant rejection and several types of leukaemia.”

Johnstone spent five days in hospital in 2004 and another period last year being given the drug intravenously. He still has monthly blood tests and a quarterly checkup, but his memory has returned and he believes he has 60 per cent of his energy levels back.

“I’ve been given my life back and I believe there’s so much hope for MS sufferers,” he said. “There were side-effects and frustrating times when I felt incredibly tired and had to deal with an infuriating rash. But I’ve had no symptoms since 2004 and when I started playing again last year, I realised I could do it — I even made the cut at the SA [South African Airways] Open in Durban last year.”

A renowned practical joker on the tour, Johnstone only told his close friends Roger Chapman, Mark Roe, Andrew Coltart and Jamie Spence about “the lurgy”, as he refers to it. He didn’t want sympathy and, because he is always winding up his friends on the practice ground and enjoying the banter, he did not want them to feel anything had to change.

“Of course, this has changed my perspective on life, although if I three-putt I don’t think I’ll be any more philosophical,” Johnstone said. “My head will still come off, but at least it won’t be a complete train smash. I know I’m incredibly lucky to be earning a living doing something I love.”

At the Italian Seniors Open in Venice today, he will just be happy to play and see how things go. “I’m not setting ridiculously high goals,” he said. “All I want to do is go out and compete.”