Drive to Play Outweighs Obstacles to Stay on Course

Leaning against a friend for balance, Norm Meizlish gripped his 7-iron with one hand, took another look down the fairway and let it rip.

The ball sailed about 30 yards.

“Amazing isn’t it?” he said sarcastically.

Meizlish, who can’t move the left side of his body since a stroke, is one of about 350 people enrolled in Fore Hope, one of several groups nationwide that help golfers with disabilities.

Casey Martin, who successfully sued the PGA to use a golf cart because of a withered leg, drew attention to disabled golfers this year. But long before that, Meizlish and thousands of others were roaming the fairways in search of sunshine and sport.

“It gets us back into circulation,” said Meizlish, who practices every week and competes in tournaments in the spring and fall. “I feel sorry for my wife. It was no fun having me as a crippled man stuck in bed. Now we have something we both can share.”

Groups like Fore Hope offer clinics, golf leagues, tournaments and information. There’s even a tournament that includes blind golfers, the Ken Venturi Guiding Eyes Classic, held in Westchester County in New York each June.

Greg Jones, of the Association of Disabled American Golfers, said his group acts as a clearinghouse.

“The calls we get are, ‘My husband just had a stroke and golf was his life,”’ he said.

The association is also involved in the development of clubs and equipment for the disabled, including a cart that can be driven onto the green. It also helped the U.S. Golf Association develop a rule book for the disabled.

“Once you have the rules it is the only sport where people with disabilities can compete on an equal basis,” Jones said.

Dan Cox, executive director of the National Amputee Golf Association, says his organization started in 1947 and now has 4,500 members.

“The Casey Martin issue has brought an awareness that golf is really the ideal game for those with a disability because it is a game of adaptability,” he said. “You can enjoy the aspect of putting, or chipping, or going to a golf range, or just playing nine holes.”

Fore Hope offers individual and group golf lessons at a nine-hole golf course in Ohio that has a wheelchair-accessible putting green.

Mindy Derr, Fore Hope’s executive director, said the hardest part of getting people with disabilities to try golf is convincing them that they can.

“Golf seems impossible to those adjusting with a disability,” she said. “We let them know it is not impossible.”

George McGrory, of the Children’s Golf Foundation in North Palm Beach, Fla., said his organization started 10 years ago with nine disabled students and now has as many as 470 each week--ranging in age from 7 to 103.

“I think the whole country needs programs like this,” McGrory said. “Seeing them swing a golf club and seeing the smile on their faces is priceless.”

The foundation is trying to build the first public golf course for the disabled.

When Howard Baker Saunders was 13, a bone infection required hip surgery that left one leg 3 inches shorter than the other. His hip remains locked in place.

Yet, he became one of the most respected amateur golfers in the nation. In 1953, he finished second in the Ohio Amateur championship, losing by a stroke to Arnold Palmer.

Saunders, 76, still plays golf and helps coach a high school team.

“Golf is a great erasure for your mind for things that you shouldn’t be concerned about,” Saunders said. “While you’re out on the course you don’t think about anything but golf--not about your affliction, not about how you’re going to pay the rent.”

Robert Olson, who had a stroke in 1995 that paralyzed his left side, gets around with a cane.

“I have the same fun as I used to,” he said. “The challenge is still there. Get a good drive, hit a good shot and try to get a good score.”

Emma Frabott, a double amputee since 1992, said learning to play golf has always been a dream. She learned about Fore Hope at the Ohio State University Medical Center’s outpatient therapy department and says it has helped her with her balance--and her outlook.

“This is the only outside interest that I have, as far as being able to go outside and be a part of something,” she said.

Frabott thinks some people with disabilities give up too soon.

“Never say ‘I can’t’ because there are people out there to encourage you,” she said. “When I hit the ball and hear that ‘zing’ it’s music to my ears.”