PGA: Allows Golf Cart

[ScriptOhio]

Report: Compton can use cart in Q-school after heart transplant


Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images
Erik Compton, shown in an April 2007 tournament, is getting back into competitive golf.


Erik Compton has the heart. He just doesn't have the stamina. So the PGA Tour is going to help him out.
Just four months after the second heart transplant of his life, the former Georgia All-American learned that officials have granted his request to use a cart during qualifying school to earn his tour card. The South Florida Sun-Sentinel first reported the story Tuesday on its Web site.
"I feel really good about the news," Compton said, according to the Sun-Sentinel. "It takes a lot of stress off me, and it gives me a realistic chance."
Compton, 28, will play the first stage of qualifying from Oct. 21-24 at Crandon Golf at Key Biscayne, Fla. He is a former No. 1 junior golfer who won on the Canadian and Hooters Tours and played on the Nationwide Tour.
Compton told the newspaper that he has also been granted a waiver to use a beta blocker, which is on the PGA Tour's list of banned substances, because he needs it as part of his medication protocol.
Heart disease caused Compton to have a heart transplant at age 12. Transplanted hearts last an average of 11 years, but his survived for 16. Then in October 2007, Compton suffered a near-fatal heart attack while fishing. He was stabilized, but it was only a matter of time before he would need a new heart.
In May, he was hospitalized again for observation and given medication to help his heart function. He was about to go home with a nurse that would provide 24-hour care when a new heart became available.
The Compton case stands in sharp contrast to that of Casey Martin. A birth defect in his leg prevented him from walking the course, but he had to sue the tour to use a cart.
While his case went through the courts, Martin was granted the right to use a cart at the 1997 Q-school. He played the Nike Tour in 1998 (won a tournament) and tied for 23rd at the U.S. Open. He earned his PGA Tour card for 2000 by finishing 14th on the Nike money list in 1999 but failed to keep his card. In 2001, he won his suit that went to the Supreme Court which allowed him to use a cart under the Americans With Disabilities Act.
He's now the golf coach at the University of Oregon.

Entire article: ESPN - Report: Compton can use cart in Q-school after heart transplant - Golf

 

[ScriptOhio]

Sports History

On this day in 2001 - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that disabled golfer Casey Martin could use a cart to ride in tournaments.

 

[Oh8ch]

On this day in 2001 - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that disabled golfer Casey Martin could use a cart to ride in tournaments.

And there is a web site that lays outs the specific chain of events that led from this decision to Tiger Woods cheating on his wife.

 

[TDunk]

And there is a web site that lays outs the specific chain of events that led from this decision to Tiger Woods cheating on his wife.

I'm guessing you haven't hit your balls out of the same "rough" that he has. He deserves a cart after being his own wingman.

 

[ScriptOhio]

Sports History

On this day in 2001 - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that disabled golfer Casey Martin could use a cart to ride in tournaments.

FWIW, good account of Casey Martin's medical condition and his legal pursuit to use a cart on the PGA Tour.

https://www.espn.com/golf/story/_/id/48825577/the-battles-continue-casey-martin-decades-supreme-court-case

The battles continue for Casey Martin, decades after Supreme Court case​

When former PGA Tour golfer Casey Martin had his right leg amputated at midthigh in October 2021, he hoped to get some relief from the excruciating pain that had hobbled him since he was born.

Instead, Martin traded the all-too-familiar aches for an entirely new level of discomfort.

"The pains that I used to have for 49 years are gone," Martin said. "Unfortunately, there's a new set that came with it. I wasn't 100% prepared for what I was going to deal with. I'm not going to lie, it's been a bit of a war."

Martin, who has coached Oregon's golf team the past two decades, hasn't played an 18-hole round in nearly two years. He can stand on his right prosthetic leg and stripe a 7-iron about 150 yards while his players warm up for practice. He can still chip with the best of them.

But everything else the game requires is physically too much for Martin, who turns 54 on Tuesday.

"It's just so hard to play, and it hurts," Martin said. "I kind of felt like it just wasn't worth it. If you put me on a flat surface, it's OK. But if you put me on a side hill in a bunker, I can't do it."

Giving up the game he played for most of his life -- and the sport he challenged in a famous legal battle that went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court a quarter-century ago -- required an entirely different kind of healing.

"I wasn't totally prepared for that," Martin said. "It's been a bit of a grieving process."

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WHEN KING AND Melinda Martin's second son was born in Eugene on June 2, 1972, he cried incessantly. His parents eventually figured out something was wrong with Casey's right leg, which had what appeared to be an unusual birthmark.

When Martin was 10 months old, doctors diagnosed him with a rare and degenerative birth defect called Klippel-Trenaunay-Weber Syndrome. The incurable disorder affects the circulatory system in his leg.

In the 1998 book "Walk a Mile in My Shoes: The Casey Martin Story," author Tom Cunneff described Martin's condition like this: "Blood in a healthy leg is carried to the lower leg by arteries, and then pumped back up the leg through veins. Because the blood is flowing up through the veins against gravity, valves in the veins are designed to prevent blood from draining back down. In the case of Casey's right leg, however, those vein valves never close. The blood never flows back up and out; instead, it pools in the lower part of the leg."

The prognosis was grim: The leaking veins in Martin's right leg would deteriorate his tibia over the years.

As a child, Martin often had to have blood drained from his right knee with a syringe. He wore hip-to-ankle compression socks to promote blood flow and prevent swelling. He iced his right leg and soaked it in a hot tub.

Even before Martin became a teenager, he knew losing his leg was probably inevitable.

"I was prepared for it," Martin said. "When people would ask me about wearing a stocking over my leg, I'd be like, 'Yeah, I probably won't have it forever.' I knew that. It was not a healthy leg."

Martin's leg didn't prevent him from playing sports as a child. He was the designated quarterback -- not to be tackled -- in backyard football games. He played basketball and golf with his brother Cameron, who is two-and-a-half years older.
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