Overdogs #7 Butt-Naked Golf – Why Not?

"There are many ways of going forward, but only one way of standing still." – Franklin Roosevelt

I love it. Our only wheelchair-bound president knew more 60 years ago about moving forward than the Professional Golfer’s Association (PGA) does today. They’re still standing still.

Golfer Casey Martin was born with the congenital defect Klippel-Trenaunay-Webber Syndrome, a disorder of blood vessels causing varicose veins and excessive growth of the soft tissue and bone. To walk, he must wear a strong support stocking to minimize swelling in his right leg. The degenerative weakness, painfully attacking his calf and tibia, has left him unable to walk unaided the 4 to 5 miles a round of golf requires. The longer the holes, the longer the course, the more his leg screams at him, impairing the physical execution needed to fulfill his job description.

A golfer who can’t walk can’t compete. The PGA says so. Martin sued the PGA in 1997 for the right to ride a golf cart between shots, rather than walk like the rest of the golfers. He cites the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which requires accommodations in the workplace for the physically disabled.

Tough luck, the PGA argues. They say the ADA requires accommodations for the disabled, but doesn’t require measures that would change the fundamental nature of goods or services, and allowing Martin to ride does exactly that. PGA Commissioner Tim Finchem says, “… the general question of fairness in competition and what happens when any individual is afforded special assistance is going to trigger some reaction at some point.” “Pro sports,” the PGA's lawyer, Bartow Farr III, says, “are nothing more or less than a competition that tests excellence in performing what [the] rules require. Any attempt to adjust the rules to compensate for an individual player's physical condition fundamentally alters the nature of that competition."

Finchem’s “special assistance” and Barr’s “compensation for physical condition” occur today on the PGA. Look at one PGA success story for proof.

There’s another golfer with a similar physical imperfection. It’s in another part of his body, but uncanny parallels exist. Like Martin, he was born with a significant physical problem. Each chose to join the PGA, to vie in a highly competitive sport. Their professional and financial success is determined largely by attributes indelibly programmed into their DNA. This golfer, too, is strongly disadvantaged on the longer holes, the longer courses, where his disability is most apparent. At least, he would be, but unlike Martin, he has been allowed use of the technology needed to lessen the impact, without which his capacity to compete at his current astounding level of excellence would simply not be.

You say you don’t remember the case, the prolonged court battle he fought to win the right to use the performance enhancer? You’ve no recollection of the PGA’s righteous outrage over this blasphemy? That’s because there was none. No clucking from Finchem or Jack Nicklaus. No litigation. No mention of this “special assistance”, so repugnant to Finchem.

That’s right. No one seems to mind Tiger Woods having had laser eye surgery in 1999. Alleviating eye problems with laser beams so Woods could see long distances was somehow different than mitigating leg problems so Martin can still stand when he reaches the 18^th tee. Finchem’s silence on the issue screams this fact.

I can hear y’all laughing at the comparison, but how indeed are they different? Reading the breaks on greens and accurately judging the distances on fairway shots is integral to Woods’ success. Is laser surgery not special assistance?

The issue is, at what point on the disability spectrum, from a simple hangnail to total quadriplegia, do we allow the PGA to draw the line? It does have to be somewhere, but where? The definitions of “special assistance” and “changing the fundamental nature of goods and services”, to be rendered in this case will have impacts beyond golf.

The Martin case will be heard by the Supreme Court, which must allow exceptions to the ADA sparingly. Handcuffing it opens the door to numerous questionable challenges, when such challenges suit an employer’s narrow, selfish interests.

For athletes, hundreds of physical issues exist which routinely are rectified by technology. A bandage on a cut thumb or a brace on a gimpy knee both provide special assistance. So does a golf glove, for God’s sake. Should barefoot golf be mandated so tenderfoots gain no edge? Hell, make ‘em play butt-naked. Let’s make the playing field obscenely level.

"Now that I'm normal, one of the things that appears to me is the slopes are bigger. Objects are bigger. The hole is bigger, ball is bigger, clubs are bigger." - Tiger Woods in 1999, right after the eye surgery.

He won his next three tournaments.

The PGA just doesn’t get it.