the disabled golfer

Great Debates
1

this article, http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/scotus_caseymartin010117.html, talks about the supreme court ruling on the case of casey martin, who is suing the pga tour to allow him to use a golf cart. casey has a congenital degenerative disorder that makes it painful and difficult for him to walk. the pga rules forbid the use of the golf cart. the crux of the law in dispute is Title III of the ADA which states “No individual shall be discriminated against on the basis of disability in the full enjoyment … of any place of public accommodation by any person who owns, leases (or leases to), or operates a place of public accommodation.”

my opinion is that the supreme court has no business in this arena, despite disability rights laws. the pga is a private organization and if it deems walking as an integral part of the professional version of golf, then so be it. if it’s integral, then an extreme analogy would be the use of an artificial moving apparatus in any sport that involves moving under your own power, thus reducing the fatigue factor that comes from such movement.

so the debate is sort of threefold:

  1. does the pga have the right to say what’s integral to its version of the sport of golf, or should the supreme court be able to make that call.
  2. is the matter of what’s integral to the sport the core of the issue here or is there another factor i’m overlooking.
  3. is this debate ‘great’ or should it be posted in imho?
2

I heard this report on the way to work today. I haven’t yet formed an opinion but some things do need to be considered. First of all the PGA changed the rules on this 3 or 4 years ago, after that is when the guy sued. He started out in the professional circuit being able to use his cart. (Notice that the linked article didn’t mention this fact.) Usually he walked because his disease had not progressed, now it has. He plays in pain anyway because just getting in and out of the cart is difficult for him. He also does have to walk fairly often given that the ball will sometimes land in places that a cart acannot go. I’d be interested to know why the PGA decided it was necessary to change the rules in the first place. The senior league doesn’t have this walking rule, they are allowed to use carts. I think the report said the guy was pulling down about 100 thou a year. Guess this would put a big curtailment on his income wouldn’t it?

Oh heaven forbid the implications that the courts might start meddling in something as time honored and sacred as sports! I’d sue too if some arbitrary rule change threatened my 100 thou a year income. (I did wonder too why the guy doesn’t use crutches or a walker or something. Wonder if the PGA would allow that.)

Needs2know

3

Well The senior tour CAN’T use a cart during the US Open, and there maybe a few others when they can’t either.

I for one think it’s a stupid idea not to let Martin play because he wants to/ has to use a cart, he can hit the ball and putt and that alone got him into the PGA in the first place. I find it pretty bad that the PGA thinks walking is part of the game, it’s not. Yes you might get tired after walking the 3-4 miles, but they are not carring the damn bag. When I golf I walk whenever I’m allowed and carry my bag and I’m still ok after 18. If walking is apart of the game then so is carring your own stuff.

I’ve heard people say stuff like “He shouldn’t be able to use a cart, it be like letting the NFL ride around in carts.” Umm… no it’s not and comparing the NFL to the PGA is really stupid. If they are gonna make him walk then why not cut the blood flow off to the rest of the fields feet so everyone can play the same? Also if using the cart would really help him how come he didn’t win everything while he was on the Nike Tour?

4

I think that the crux of the debate lies in whether using a golf cart gives a golfer a tangible advantage in a golf tournament. According to the PGA, it does: the energy saved by not having to walk 72 holes over 4 days gives a player an advantage over other golfers.

If that’s true, then I think the PGA has a good case. Consider this analogy: a professional basketball player (we’ll call him “Grant” for this example) develops a chronic Achilles’ tendon condition that makes it impossible for him to play basketball. But there’s an operation he can have, to get a cybernetic implant that will not only fix the tendon, but increase his vertical leap by 8 inches.

Would the NBA be justified in prohibiting Grant from both having the operation and playing in the NBA? After all, no other players are allowed to get the implant just because they want it. I’d say yes, they’d be within their rights to deny Grant his wish.

If you buy into the fact that walking is part of the Game of Golf™, just as jumping is part of the Game of Basketball™, then in no way should Casey Martin be allowed to use a cart, unless all other golfers are given the same option, whether or not they need it.

Don’t get me wrong; I have great sympathy for Martin. If I ran the PGA, I’d probably just let anyone who wanted use a cart. And since I don’t play golf, I can’t answer the “if” question I pose in the previous paragraph.

Are there golfers here who can speak to the question of the advantage of riding vs. walking in a golf tourney?

-Fezzik

5

Edward, I know I’ve seen professional golfers interviewed who disagree with you. What is their motivation for saying that walking is part of the game, if, as you contend, it’s not?

This assertion is absurd. There’s a large difference between “gaining some advantage in a tourney” and “gaining an advantage so large that one can win every tourney.” If I found a miracle pill that cut 15 strokes off of my game, I still wouldn’t win any professional tournaments, I promise you.

-Fezzik

6

Can anyone tell me how this case is all that different than the Boyscout homosexual decision?
I see two private organizations who want to set their own rules.

Regardless as to whether you and I think they made a wise decision, shouldn’t they have the right to make decisions we disagree with in their own orginaization?

7

Well I guess for him what little bit of walking and entering and exiting the cart is enough to tax his strength. I don’t know anything about golf. I’m sure it’s fun, but it’s about as fun to watch as professional bowling, which is right up there with virtual fish tanks and watching paint dry. Could the PGA have changed the rules because other players complained? That was the question that bothered me, why did they change the rules now when they have a handicapped guy playing?

I agree that the PGA has a right to set rules for it’s events. I also believe that this guy has a right to sue if he wants too. Whatever rule of law this guy chooses to use in his litigation doesn’t matter either. We are talking about his profession here. He has a right to defend his livelyhood.

Yeah, Freedom2 they do have a right to set their own rules, they also have the right to suffer the consequences. Just as the Boy Scouts have.

Needs2know

8

While we’re asking for cites, I’d like one concerning the rule change 3-4 years ago. If such a change occurred, I can imagine perhaps an explicit rule was never required before, because it had always been accepted that pro golfers walked. Ben Hogan didn’t ask to use a cart. That is mere speculation on my part.

I have also heard Martin say a cart gives him a disadvantage compared to the feel and perspective you get walking the course. Hard for me to comment, as my poor excuse for a golf game involves quite little “feel.”

It seems to me should Martin get to use a cart, all golfers should have that option, however able bodied they might be. However, my gut reaction is, “Gee, it’s too bad he doesn’t have what it takes to compete. Guess he’ll have to do something else.”

IMO, Martin is not being discriminated against. Instead, he wishes gain an advantage under the ADA to participate in a specific occupation. More to the point, he desires a competitive advantage in an incredibly competitive arena. So what if the accomodation does not mean he will win every event. It does, however, increase his possibilities of success. Should not every other competitor in every other sport be allowed to employ any technology that might make up for whatever his or her shortcomings? How seriously is the quality of his life being reduced? Is this a function we want government to serve?

The man is not incapable of being employed. Nor is he incapable of being employed in the golf industry. He could be a teaching pro, an equipment rep, etc. Is this what the ADA is for? To enable people to sue to obtain a specific position they are unqualified for? To me, this is a far cry from providing technoogy to allow a vision-impaired individual to work in an office environment. Or ramps, etc., to allow access to buildings. Or flexible leave and work-at-home policies.

What if I wanted to compete in billiards, or target shooting, but I had a condition that interfered with fine muscle control, especially in longer competitions. Should I be able to use a tripod?

Gee. It really is too bad Casey Martin has a bum leg. Boo fucking hoo.

9

This is a really not-so-bright thing to say. Does that mean the faster athletes in a Track & Field competition should have to wear ankle weights, just so that they don’t have an advantage over the slower ones? Should Emmitt Smith have to carry a 25 pound pack so weaker and slower defensive players will be able to catch him? The point of sports competition is to see who can perform the best, not to hobble the strong and enhance the weak so everybody has the same chance.

Nobody is stopping him from playing golf. But the PGA is the governing body of the professional golf circuit. If you want to play professional golf under they PGA with the PGA’s benefits and prizes, you follow the PGA’s rules. period. Perhaps he should start his OWN pro tour, and institute any rules he likes. If a baseball player isn’t physically able to play his game, then he CAN’T PLAY. So sad, but oh well. That’s life. If this guy isn’t physically able to walk around on the grass to play his game, than he CAN’T PLAY.

You probably think that song “The Trees” from Rush is a good model for social evolution, don’t you?

For what it’s worth, I think golf is a silly game, and I’ve seen patients in burn wards who do more physical exertion than what is required to walk around a golf course. But even so, I’m sorry that he can’t play, but if you can’t, then you can’t.

10

i think there should have been a vote among the professional golfers. i pay no attention to golf and think it’s ridiculous that something this trivial gets to the supreme court.

11

The district court ruled, as a matter of law, that golf courses are public accommodations, even while a PGA tour event is being conducted on them, and that the PGA is therefore subject to Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

After a trial, it found that modifying the walking rule for Martin was a reasonable accommodation that did not fundamentally alter the nature of PGA tournaments.

In my view, there are two grounds on which the court’s reasoning may, and should, be overturned:

  • The court erred when finding that a golf course’s playing area, while hosting a PGA tournament, is a place of public accomodation

  • The addition of a golf cart for one player, and not others, fundamentally alters the specialized variety of golf offered by the PGA

  • Rick

12

Ironic, isn’t it that the PGA has as part of it’s ‘mission’, to improve the “accessability of golf”.

http://www.pga.com/FAQ/pga_role.html

Seems to me, too, that people are assuming the word ‘private’ means something akin to ‘I can do what I want in my private home’. I’m not sure that it means that in this arena. As a private, non profit corp, I must still follow laws about EOE etc.

But, since I don’t play golf, watch golf, care about golf.

13

I don’t have a cite…I heard it on the radio this morning…NPR report. Perhaps I heard wrong. My radio is pretty bad, everytime I hit a bump it has to be adjusted. Need new radio and shocks evidently. But seems to me like they did say the rule had been changed. Just because you see the guys walking on TV doesn’t mean that they always walked the course. As a matter of fact seems like they did mention that carts had been used in the past in an effort to speed the game along.

Don’t really care either. Wish I could hit a little ball around 5 days a week and make 100 thou. Think I’d crawl the damned course if that’s what it took.

Needs2know

14

One other point, the most likely reason this is before the Supremes is because there is a split in the circuits. The 7th Cir found against a golfer named Olinger who wanted to use a cart for USGA qualifying. I’ll try to dig up a cite.

15

I am not a lawyer, nor do I play one on TV. I play a fair amount of golf, though strictly at the recreational level.

I believe there are two relevant questions here:

  • Is the PGA tour a public accomodation or a private organization?

Personally I can’t see where PGA tour events are a public accomodation - at least, not in terms of the participating golfers. Certainly in terms of the gallery, but that’s a different matter. I can see where ADA rules would apply in terms of accomodations for the folks watching the tournament (just as they’d apply in terms of folks watching a football game), but the players are a different matter. I’d have to side with the PGA on this one.

  • Is walking an integral part of the event?

This one’s a real stretch, IMHO. The classic example the tour brings up is the “72 holes in one day in 110 degree weather”, presumably under the assumption that only tough guys play professional golf. To be blunt, this just doesn’t happen all that often - and when it does, I don’t see why anyone who wants a cart can’t just have one. If PGA tour golf was a game of strength and endurance, they’d make the players do 50 pushups before teeing off. I’m not siding with the PGA on this one - personally, I think this is just an argument that their lawyers thought up at some point.

Bottom line - I think the PGA tour should have let Casey Martin have a cart in the first place. It’s only hurt its image by doing otherwise, and appealing this case to the Supreme Court, while it’s their right, is simply a public relations disaster for them.

I don’t remember any recent PGA tour rule changes concerning golf carts, and I’m confident that the magazines I read would all have mentioned this on multiple occasions if the tour had changed the rules after Casey Martin tried to join it. For one thing, it would have been discussed at every court appearance, as this would have really hurt the PGA’s case.

Someone asked if there was any advantage to walking in a golf tournament as opposed to riding. I prefer to walk, but I don’t see any advantage (in terms of my score) to doing so.

16

I wrote that kinda bad. It was more the PGA saying that if Martin was alowed a cart it would help him more and I’m saying it wouldn’t help him one bit, he will have to walk, around the greens, to and from his ball etc, that’s where a lot of the walking is in golf.

true, but walking has little to no effect on the game, golf is more swing of which Martin has, not who the hell can walk the farthest.

This isn’t baseball though, it’s golf and I’ve already said walking isn’t part of the game.

no, not at all. actually I’m one of the more devout “Randivites” on the board if you want to call it that, I just don’t say much about it.

I’ll see if I can sum up what I want to say, though I’m a crap writer:

The reason the PGA doesn’t want carts isn’t because it’s gonna help anyone do any better, IMHO of course, but because they say it’s tradition. BFHD it’s “tradition” in football to wear leather helmets, and to wear metal spikes in baseball to cut up the infield. I don’t think, though it’s been a couple of years, but that’s what all the pros were saying that they didn’t want carts because it was tradition. I don’t think that any of them gave a good responce to not alowing carts. Plus most of them said that they wouldn’t use a cart even if it was offered to them so they don’t think that it would help either.

I guess that I could throw this out and say that a cart can actually HURT a golfer as I’ve been told by an old instuctor of mine that after the first few holes you will actually hit the ball farther because you’re warmed up so walking would keep the golfer warmed up while riding in a cart might not allow him to keep him loose. Plus if the PGA wants tradition I still think they should make the golfers carry their clubs.

17

Unfortunately, I think the PGA has blundered in the phrasing of the issue, if indeed it is the original wording of PGA and not a paraphrase. It’s been reported that the PGA believes “walking is an intrinsic part of golf.” I’m not certain that it is, but I do believe that it is an intrinsic part of the competition game of golf for the reason already mentioned by Fezzik and Dinsdale.

The energy expenditure of walking 18 holes for four days straight is not trivial. If it’s a 7,000 yard long course, which is probably pretty typical for a professional tournament, that’s just under 4 miles, counting the yardage from tee to green. Add in the distance between the green and the next tee, any wandering around looking for balls that a competitor may have to do for shots that go awry to get a better idea of just how far they have to walk each day. Considering the state of my golf game and physical condition, after all the rambling around I am forced to do chasing down my golfshots, I’m just about done in after walking 18 holes. As I said, I’m in terrible shape, but even with that caveat, I’m hard pressed to believe that the professionals, as much as they’ve emphasized physical fitness in recent years, wouldn’t notice a difference between walking and riding.

Ironic, perhaps, but I see a big difference between improving the accessability of golf to people and making serious changes to the underlying competition of the tournaments.

18

dal_timgar

i agree with this. the pga is an organization of professional golfers. any exception to rules should be at the discretion of the professional golf community. if they think walking is integral, then it’s integral. if world opinion labels them ‘discriminatory’ and they get a bad rap, that’s their problem.

wring

but sports competition is not about equality - if anything, it’s a demonstration of the physical inequality of the participants. it’s only when the playing field is absolutely level that we can truly guage which athletes are physically superior to the others. martin can’t hang on the level playing field. not to be callous, but that’s why they call it a disability.

19

I believe golf associations support increasing access to golf for people with disabilities, through promulgating special rules (akin to wheelchair basketball leagues or marathons), increasing physical access to courses for competition and viewing, donating money to charitable causes, etc. Martin is (in some ways) a sympathetic individual, as is anyone with a physical or mental impairment. But should a sport’s competitive rules be modified for an individual competitor who has less physical ability than other competitors? And who should make that decision? The sport’s governing body, or a court?

I think a sport’s competitive rules serve a different purpose than EOE laws. I also personally do not believe that professional competitions are “public accommodations.” As such, the ADA should not apply. It also seems tautological that a cart gives him an advantage. Without a cart, he couldn’t compete. With a cart, he can.

If Martin gets to use a cart, how are others’ use of carts or other assistive devices to be decided in the future, and by whom? If I walk the first 2 rounds, but wake up with a back ache on Sat, can I use a cart for the 3d round? Or if I inexplicably lose distance on my drives, can I use a nonconforming driver or ball? If I pull all my putts, can I use a putter with a gyroscope? In fact, why limit me to 14 clubs, if carrying a couple of extra would allow me to compete, whereas presently I cannot?

And we haven’t even mentioned drugs, yet…

20

Quoting myself (after all, who else is going to do it?)

**If PGA tour golf was a game of strength and endurance, they’d make the players do 50 pushups before teeing off. **

Actually, a better idea would be to make these macho athletic types carry their own damn golf bags just like the rest of us do. Buncha wimps :slight_smile: