Last month golf made its first appearance in the Olympics since 1904. Whatever people feel about golf’s place in the Olympics — and despite a number of high-profile players pulling out — the men’s and ladies’ tournaments seemed to go well and there is a positive feeling looking ahead to Tokyo 2020. However, a few people may have noticed that golf is not represented in the Paralympics. Furthermore, it is not going to be part of the 2020 Paralympics, so 2024 marks the first realistic chance to see disabled golfers on a high-profile, worldwide stage. Adaptive golf is a small community right now, but I think there is real potential for golf to be a major Paralympic sport with large numbers of recreational players around the world if some of the right pieces fall into place.
I started to look into expanding Ping’s adaptive golf program in about 2007. I talked to a lot of people involved in the adaptive golf world including members of the blind golf, amputee golf and wheelchair golf communities, as well as great organizations like Saving Strokes, which uses golf as a form of rehabilitation for stroke survivors. What I found were a number of really good, but mostly disconnected organizations. In these past nine years, my belief has grown that if we could knit together some of these programs into a network, golf could be a much bigger sport for individuals with disabilities than it is now.
There are some huge benefits to golf over other sports:
- The existing handicap system allows people of vastly different abilities to play together and compete, which is not really possible in a sport like tennis or soccer.
- There are multiple tees for players who hit the ball different distances.
- It’s a self-timed sport, meaning the player hits the ball in his or her own time and does not have to react to an opponent.
- There is a medical benefit to the physical exercise associated with the game.
Steve Winter, a wheelchair golfer who has consulted for us, has told me many times that he loves golf because on the course he’s just a golfer like any other. When he plays wheelchair basketball, it is with a group of other wheelchair players. However, he can play golf with me and it’s the same game for both of us. We made him a set of clubs with extra-large putter grips and Velcro over the grips to allow him to swing one-handed, but other than sometimes taking a drop from a location he can’t access in his chair, the game is the same for him as it is for me. He can enjoy the same frustration over a missed 3-foot putt as I do.
We have tried to offer equipment modifications to better serve the adaptive golf community. Players who swing one-handed often use bigger grips or Velcro grips, and stroke survivors or arthritic golfers have benefitted from this, too. Leg amputee golfers often benefit from longer shafts to enable a more stable base for the swing. Players who hit from a chair or adapted golf cart usually need specific non-traditional lengths and lie angles. We have built clubs as short as 24 inches and as long as 60 inches, bent clubs 12 degrees flat, added or removed significant mass from the head, and created special grip solutions for those who need it.
Every now and again we really have to flex our problem-solving muscles. Jeff Lewis, a local quadruple amputee golfer, contacted us to ask if we could help him. Figure 2 shows how we figured something out whereby the club fixes directly into his right prosthetic arm. There is a quick-change mechanism using springs that allows him to change clubs by pushing and twisting. We published this research in the Journal of Sports Engineering so the mechanism could be used in other applications.
We have quite a few adaptive club-fitting centers now and we have created guidelines for fitters interested in conducting fittings for people with disabilities. A good problem-solver with the right tools can help almost anyone find the right head, shaft and grip to help them swing comfortably and maximize performance. It just takes a willingness to try some different options and see what works. I focus on helping the player feel comfortable swinging the club first, and then focus on performance optimization. Trial and error is very important and sometimes the least intuitive option is the one that works the best. There is not much in golf more satisfying than helping someone hit the ball farther and straighter than they ever have before.
The adaptive golf community is still very small, however. There are more than 50 million people in the Unites States with some kind of disability, but very few are involved in the sport. I’ve been to some really good adaptive golf tournaments, and everything indicates there are a lot of people interested in playing competitively or just for fun. The Paralympics would be a huge way to get visibility to the sport, reaching an enormous worldwide TV audience. What’s holding golf back from getting into the Paralympics is a lack of worldwide structure including world championships and international rankings, articulated well by Geoff Shackleford in his blog.
It seems like a catch-22 situation: the Paralympics would really help promote adaptive golf, but adaptive golf needs to reach a certain level of organization and profile before it would be considered for the Paralympics. Caroline Larsson, a former professional golfer in Europe, is backing a campaign for golf in the Paralympics. It will take more support to achieve that goal. Companies, organizing bodies and all interested parties will need to band together and put in the time to create the structure needed for a successful bid. I really think that a stronger adaptive golf community, with the pinnacle of the sport being Paralympic medals and/or adaptive golf majors, would benefit the whole golfing world.
