Rider in the Storm

Disabled golfer Casey Martin took the PGA Tour all the way to the Supreme Court and won his ticket to ride, ending a three-year journey across the slippery slopes of the legal system.

While the two sides of the issue, or ground zero where the rules of professional golf collided with the federal law requiring accommodations for the disabled, were busily assessing the Supreme Court’s 7-2 decision allowing Martin use of a golf cart, one important question remained unanswered.

Was this really necessary?

Yes, positively, says PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem.

No, absolutely not, says Martin attorney Roy Reardon.

Finchem reviewed the opinion and quickly gave the defeat a positive spin. He found reason for optimism, saying the decision was worded in such a manner that Martin might be the only exception in the world to the PGA Tour rules that say walking is an integral part of the game.

Finchem’s first impression of the decision is that the tour still would be able to keep its walking requirement.

“Hopefully, with the way this opinion was written, we can have our cake and eat it too,” said Finchem, calling the result a “win-win situation.”

Reardon was having none of it.

“He could have had that win-win situation a long time ago if he had wanted it,” Reardon said.

What Martin wanted was a resolution to the protracted, confusing, emotional, often bitter court case so he could try to continue a pro golf career that has been far more controversial than rewarding.

Martin, who was born with a rare and painful circulatory disorder in his right leg, expressed relief at the ruling and suggested it might help him play his way out of golf’s minor leagues and onto the PGA Tour again.

“Hopefully, because I need all the help I can get, the way I’ve been playing,” Martin said. “Maybe I’ve had a lot on my mind. I’m not going to say I thought about it standing over every shot, but it’ll be interesting to see.

“It would be my wish and my prayer to see a positive change in my career.”

Martin, who turns 29 on Saturday, was awakened Tuesday morning at his home in Eugene, Ore., by a telephone call. It was Finchem and he informed Martin of the Supreme Court decision.

“I told him that it was over,” Finchem said. “You have to be a Casey Martin fan.”

Using the Americans with Disabilities Act as the basis for his lawsuit against the PGA Tour, Martin won his case at every level, from district court to appellate court to the Supreme Court. Finchem and lawyers for the tour insisted that the tour be able to write, administer and enforce the rules of its competition, which said that riding a cart fundamentally alters the nature of the game.

As it turned out, there could be no middle ground. Further clouding the issue was a different decision on a similar case 14 months ago when the 7th U.S. Court of Appeals in Chicago ruled against a disabled club pro from Indiana who wanted to use a cart in U.S. Open qualifying.

Finchem says the 7th Circuit Court’s ruling against Ford Olinger, who has a degenerative hip condition, was one reason the PGA Tour could not make Martin an exception to its rule and let him use a cart. The tour wanted an ultimate ruling on the bounds of the ADA.

In addition, Finchem said tour lawyers advised that making Martin a lone exception would not work.

Martin said once he was issued a cart at PGA Tour qualifying school in 1997 and realized that carts are also used in all Senior PGA Tour events, it influenced his decision to take on the tour.

“Without a doubt,” he said. “I think that is a big reason why we prevailed.”

Reardon said there clearly were too many exceptions to the no-cart rule.

“The game of golf is getting the ball from the tee to the hole,” he said. “It’s not about how well he walks or if he walks.”

That is exactly the opinion shared by Martin and his family, a close-knit support group that often found itself in a stance that was lonely and unpopular.

King Martin had prepared himself for an unfavorable ruling and was caught off-guard by the decision in his son’s favor.

“I’m shocked it was only two,” the elder Martin said of the dissenting justices.

“I’m just so grateful. I find it interesting and telling that the decision came the day after Memorial Day, when the interest and the focus of the country is all about American ideals. It’s a wonderful thing to be able to pursue your dreams.”

King Martin said he had only one conversation with Finchem in the three years the case moved through the court system, but he wasn’t sure if what he said was really heard.

“We all make decisions and we stand up for what we believe,” Martin said. “I was disappointed, to say the least, from their position. I felt the sport of golf had a great opportunity to embrace the situation and advance the sport to a new level. . . .

“What sustained us in tough situations is hope. That’s what we all live for, isn’t it? We all have short, finite lives, so you live on hope. That’s what nurtured us from the beginning.”

Melinda Martin, Casey’s mother, said she was stunned.

“I feel like somebody who just won the Academy Award,” she said. “You just don’t know what to say. I was so prepared for the other answer. This is so great. All Casey ever wanted was a chance.”

Martin was a member of Stanford’s 1994 NCAA championship team along with Tiger Woods and Notah Begay III. An Academic All-American in 1995, Martin earned a bachelor’s degree in economics, although it seems he would have been better equipped for what was to transpire if he had a law degree.

Martin filed suit against the PGA Tour in November 1997 in U.S. District Court in Eugene, arguing that the tour should allow him to use a cart during competition.

Martin’s supporters insisted that using a cart did not alter the game and merely provided Martin with a reasonable accommodation so he could compete.

At the same time, the tour believed that it should be allowed to implement and set the rules of competition and the rules included walking.

Two weeks after Martin filed the suit, the district court issued a preliminary injunction against the tour that allowed Martin to use a cart at Grenelefe, Fla., at the final stage of the qualifying tournament, known as Q School.

Martin didn’t earn his PGA Tour card at qualifying, but he did play well enough to get a Nike Tour card.

Two months later, in the first event of the 1998 pro golf season on the Nike Tour, Martin won the Lakeland Classic in Florida while riding a cart.

In early February, Martin returned to District Court in Eugene asking for a permanent injunction against the tour that would allow him to use a cart. U.S. Magistrate Tom Coffin sided with Martin in a ruling on Feb. 19, issuing the permanent injunction sought by Martin and allowing him to use a cart in all the tour’s events.

In his ruling, Coffin said that walking was not an integral part of golf.

The PGA Tour immediately announced it would appeal Coffin’s decision.

Meanwhile, Martin rode on. His first Nike Tour event after the ruling, at Austin, was a media circus. After a news conference attended by nearly 100 reporters, several video cameras were trained on Martin, following him closely, even as he disappeared into a portable toilet.

The cart issue continued to roll along. The USGA allowed Martin to use a cart in U.S. Open qualifying at Cincinnati, where Martin made the field by winning a playoff. At the U.S. Open at the Olympic Club in San Francisco, he tied for 23rd, better than any first-time player.

As the media followed his every step at each stop on the Nike Tour, Martin grew more distracted. He won only $81,937 in 1998 and didn’t finish in the top 15 money winners so he didn’t earn his PGA Tour card and was back playing the Nike Tour in 1999.

It turned out to be a good year for Martin. The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco heard oral arguments in the case and Martin went to work on the golf course in earnest. Martin wound up 14th on the Nike Tour money list with $122,742, which meant he could join his former Stanford teammates Woods and Begay on the PGA Tour in 2000.

Then in March 2000, nearly 10 months after hearing oral arguments, the 9th Circuit voted, 3-0, in favor of Martin’s position.

Judge William C. Canby wrote in his decision that walking is not an essential part of the game and that hitting golf shots was.

There was only one more avenue for the PGA Tour to follow if it wished to continue its legal battle. In July, the tour filed a petition asking that the Supreme Court hear its appeal. The Supreme Court agreed in September to take on the case. The nine-member panel heard arguments from both sides on Jan. 17.

While Martin’s court case worked its way through the legal system last year, his golf game stalled almost from the start.

Martin played 29 PGA Tour events and missed 15 cuts. He finished no higher than 33rd after March and placed 179th on the money list when only the top 125 keep their PGA Tour playing privileges, so Martin lost his exempt status for 2001.

Martin went to qualifying school to try to get it back, but missed by one shot. He returned to golf’s minor leagues, which had changed names to the Buy.com Tour.

Whatever name it is known by, the tour hasn’t become any easier for Martin. In eight tournaments this year, Martin has missed four cuts and won only $6,433.

In his wake-up call to Martin, Finchem said he told Martin he was now free to just play golf, a welcome situation that Martin’s father predicts to be key.

“It gives Casey a focus that he can pursue things long-term, or at least work on his game without court distractions, as opposed to things in the past,” King Martin said.

Martin said he doesn’t believe the ruling in his favor will affect such core sports as basketball or football, but hopes it has some effect.

“I think in the future it opens doors for some people . . . that sports authorities think twice . . . don’t take the easy way about, like the tour did. Maybe it’ll have a trickle-down effect. But I don’t know how many world-class athletes there are out there [with handicaps.]”

Martin says he is taking three more weeks off before returning to the Buy.com Tour full time. His goal is unchanged, ruling or not. He wants to make it back to the PGA Tour. He just isn’t sure how much time he has with a right leg that could break at any moment and end his career.

“It’s something that I think about. I don’t have an answer. I have a lot of uncertainty in my life. Even though this one big hurdle is over, I still have some more to overcome. This is a big win for me, but it’s not the end of the line. The end of the story has not yet been written.”

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