Brian Barnes will never play golf again. For the past year or two he has waged an unavailing battle against rheumatoid arthritis.

And now, at 56, says there is no hope of playing again at any level.

He said: "I cannot even swing a club higher than my waist and as there is no cure, that is it so far as golf is concerned. Now I've just got to look ahead. A lot of people are a lot worse off than me.

"I can drive a car, that's no problem. I can still enjoy coarse fishing, but not fly as I cannot cast any more. As to the future, the American TV company I was commentating on this year's US Senior Tour for have decided to use members of their home-based team so I am hoping to join Sky next year in the studio, not on the course."

Brian has been back from America at his Storrington home for three months re-structuring his future. "I've had 35 years of travelling and I would prefer to stay here. I'm looking at a couple of things. Who knows, in the next couple of years I might write my autobiography."

Brian no longer has any stake in his local club West Chiltington although he is a frequent visitor as it is just around the corner. His playing visits started to be curtailed when the arthritis first appeared. The disease caused his fingers to swell to the size of sausages so that he could hardly get a glove on. Both ankles were also affected but the greatest problem was a growing restriction on gripping the club.

"Most people who suffer from rheumatoid arthritis don't wield a golf club for a living," he added. "It's not anno domini arthritis and it could have begun as purely a blood virus when I was bitten by a spider six years ago."

The disease crept up on Barnes within two months of his 50th birthday. This was a particularly cruel twist as two months after celebrating a personal half-century of good health he made a sensational start to his post-50 career by winning the 1995 Senior British Open. Doubly satisfying was winning at Royal Portrush over the course where father-in-law Max Faulkner won his Open title 44 years earlier.

This was no flash in the pan for Barnes who successfully retained his golden oldie crown and, in 1998, won the Canada Senior Open. Even then he had problems with phlebitis and damaged tendons of the left leg that played-up further when he proved allergic to the strapping. Increasingly he needed pain killers while Warfarin was prescribed to thin the blood and he went on a special diet.

"My condition at present can sometimes be affected by food or even the weather. But I am reconciled to not playing any more. It would need a miracle for me to get on the course again and what would be the point as I can't swing a club."

In golf, where there is no shortage of great players performing well into their 60s and 70s and beyond, this is a terrible blow for Barnes. The real danger warning came last year when he was forced to withdraw after just a few holes of the Senior British Open, his only appearance on the 2000 European Seniors Tour.

It was then he acknowledged the fight against arthritis was one he couldn't win or even meet half way and it was only a matter of time before a friendly nine holes with Max was even out of the question.

Starting in 1969 Barnes went on to win ten European tournaments together with six Ryder Cup appearances and a host of other honours at home and throughout the world. His great misfortune, like his contemporaries, was that his career boomed when earnings were peanuts compared to the enormous sums made today. Brian felt he had joined the gravy train at long last with his two Senior British Open victories only to have the golden chalice dashed from his lips.

As a globetrotter he didn't often appear in his adopted home of Sussex. In 1987 he won the Sussex Open at Ham Manor in between popping home between rounds for a spot of lunch and then returning to accept the trophy from Lavinia, Duchess of Norfolk on whose cheek he bestowed a resounding kiss. It may not have been protocol, but that was typical of Brian and the lady did not seem at all put out.

For those thousands who followed his colourful career on and off the course it is hard to come to terms with not watching that majestic swing and admiring such a gossamer putting touch of this 17 stone colossus of the fairways. That Brian Barnes has accepted the unkindest cut of the cards without a murmur is a lesson to us all.