Martin reveals golf's true greens

By David Oppenheim

Most PGA Tour veterans have run face-first into little-known rules and seen their earnings suffer as a result. Davis Love III was disqualified from a tournament for forgetting to sign his scorecard before leaving the scorer's tent. Curtis Strange and Seve Ballesteros nearly came to blows at the 1991 Ryder Cup over whether the latter illegally touched the putting surface.

No golfer, though, has been penalized to the extent that the PGA Tour was prepared to penalize Casey Martin prior to his victory in the courtroom last week. The rule under which Martin was nearly forced off the Tour had nothing to do with his play, but rather with who he is and the image that the PGA and Commissioner Tim Finchem wish to project.

Martin, of course, is the disabled golfer who is unable to walk long distances, yet managed to play well enough in the 1998 PGA Tour Qualifying Tournament to earn a spot on the 1998 Nike Tour, the high minor league of golf. As a member of the Nike Tour, Martin will be eligible to play in approximately half of regular PGA Tour events.

Martin has a rare circulatory disorder, Klippel-Trenaunay-Weber Syndrome, which makes it too painful for him to walk through a round of golf. He does not have the vein that runs along the bone in his lower right leg.

Rather than laud his success as a human triumph and a demonstration of the inclusiveness and diversity of the PGA Tour (a perfect public relations coup), the Tour's authorities chose to exercise a trivial rule in order to bar Martin's entrance to the Tour--and they found themselves in court.

In all official Tour events, players are prohibited from using golf carts. Ostensibly, this rule is in place to ensure that players have the stamina to walk 18 holes in addition to holing out with the fewest strokes. As an avid golfer, however, I have noticed no significant difference in my play when I ride rather than walk. If anything, walking gives me more time to think about my next shot and produces better results. The cart rule is not in effect for the Tour qualifying tournament, which is not televised but is perhaps the most intense event of the season; it determines who will make the Tour for the next year and who will not.

This exception makes it difficult to claim that the prohibition of golf carts exists as a basic element of the game of golf and of the PGA Tour. If that were true, the qualifying tournament would not be a true test of golfers vying for slots on the Tour. The carts would be an excuse for those who do not qualify. This has never been the case.

What is more likely is that the no-carts rule has more to do with the element of PGA Tour events not present in the qualifying tourney: television. By forcing golfers to walk, the PGA has lengthened players' rounds by adding to the time taken between shots. This extra time gives the TV crews more flexibility in what to show, heightens the drama at the end of tournaments, and, perhaps most importantly, allots the networks covering golf more time for commercials. The Tour knows it must fight to the bitter end when its sponsors and revenue are involved.

The PGA's intransigence regarding Martin had less to do with a concern that using a cart would give him too great an advantage than with a concern that an exception in Martin's case might lead to a questioning of the validity of the cart rule itself. Such a scenario would be, to the Tour, a pain in the wallet.

I firmly believe in the doctrine that no one should receive special favors based solely on who they are. If Martin was suing the PGA for the privilege of a two-stroke handicap in every tournament because of his disability, I would be among the voices denouncing him. His use of a cart, however, is a fair concession which allows him to compete, and nothing more. In a society based upon fair competition between individuals, I am in favor of sports associations' taking measures to allow individuals who, through no fault of their own, are at a disadvantage to join the level playing field. It is akin to the ideal of affirmative action and to special tax breaks for small businesses. His legal victory is a needed reassurance that America still believes in fair competition for all. For Martin, the verdict means simply that he will be able to take on the best golfers in the world as an equal.

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