If Ryan MacDonald walked past a piece of well manicured grass, he would begin to think about what it would be like to hit a six iron off it.

For ten years, he watched his favourite sport from the sideline after a tick bite attacked his central nervous system in his early 20s.

Affecting his mobility over time, he tried using crutches and orthotics to help him around the course for a few years but found he was falling a lot.

While he still has full sensation in his legs, he reached a point ten years ago when he was unable to make them move and so started using a wheelchair.

This meant he had to give up the sport altogether, losing with it the social aspect of playing with his family and friends.

"I played every sport practically - tennis, badminton, basketball, football - pretty much anything with a winner and a loser, I would be involved in," Ryan says.

"My whole family are all sports orientated and play a lot of sports as well.

"Golf was a big hobby. It was the last sport I was able to play but I had to give that up when I started using the chair."

The sport enthusiast did not let his disability hold him back, taking up wheelchair tennis and basketball but he did still feel a gap of not being able to play golf.

Then, a few years ago, Ryan heard about the paragolfer, a buggy-style machine which makes golf accessible to anyone with a disability - from arthritis to paralysis - by raising them into an upright position so they can swing at the ball.

Trying out a privately-owned machine in Fife, the experience brought mixed emotions for Ryan as he was instantly impressed with the freedom it gave him yet at the same time saddened this wasn't a resource he had access to .

Thankfully for the 35-year-old, he didn't have to wait too long with findings from charity Social Care Ideas Factory (SCIF) following the Commonwealth Games showing that many people said they loved golf but felt either excluded or restricted because of injury, disability or illness.

Shocked there were no facilities in Scotland to play adaptive golf, the charity worked with The Watson Foundation and The Stand Up and Play Foundation to fund two paragolfer machines at Mearns Castle Golf Academy, which are free to hire for use on their driving range and nine-hole golf course.

Ryan wasted no time in trying the machine on the course near his home in Crookston, Glasgow. Despite the blustery conditions he was able to try out the machine with his dad, and then take to the greens with his son for the very first time, something he thought he would never be able to do.

"Me and my dad went out onto the course and we played about three or four holes in the snow practically," Ryan says. "I was just desperate to get back out playing, it was absolutely amazing.

"My son is nine so he had been playing golf with my dad. I have been able to go out and play golf with him which was just incredible."

Since introducing the two machines at the Newton Mearns club, the paragolfer has proved so popular the club is now hoping to host a third machine, with a fundraiser planned for September 24.

Golfers are being encouraged to enter teams of four for a nine-hole game followed by food and games, with The Watson Foundation match-funding the total raised on the day.

Charlie B-Gavigan, founder and curator of SCIF who set up the initiative Paragolf Scotland earlier this year, says: "Paragolf has the potential to give Scottish golf a new lease of life, increasing national membership and participation.

"We want to reach out to men and women of all ages who were former golfers, who, due to injury, illness or disability thought golf would never be possible. We also want to encourage those who are just curious to try a new sport."

While adaptive golf is still a relatively new idea in Scotland, Charlie is also hopeful that other clubs across the country are encouraged to also begin offering this service.

"We hope to inspire other clubs to get on board and have recently heard that a club in Lothian is to get two paragolfers, which is fantastic," he says.

"We believe disabled people have been overlooked for too long in golf. The therapeutic benefits of golf for physically limited players are immense."

For Ryan, the paragolfer has given him access once again to the social side of golf he had so missed but says he is all too aware of the "postcode lottery" still existing , something he hopes will change in time.

"I feel really lucky that I am only a few miles away from the course," he says. "If you are part of a golf club, a tennis club, a bowling club, you automatically become part of the community.

"The social aspect of golf is something that so many people lose when they lose their mobility."