Casey Martin is not a soldier, a policeman, or a fireman. Using the word "hero" to describe a professional golfer seems somewhat trite, until you consider what Martin has to go through just to pursue his chosen profession. Martin, who won a Supreme Court decision against the PGA that allowed him to use a cart while playing, has struggled to find his place over the past couple of years. There has been more disappointment than triumph for Martin, but he is still chasing his dream.
[E]veryone lost interest when the cart turned off the PGA Tour and was steered to Buy.com tour stops in Odessa and Richmond and Dayton these past two years. The $30,218 earnings for 2002 leave Martin No. 117 on the minor league money list. Out of sight, out of mind, out of discussion.
But there's a touch of triumph and tragedy to see Martin's out there; still swinging, still limping, still pushing that pulsating pain in his leg to the pockets of his psyche. He's had two terrible seasons on the minor league tour, but all the heartache suddenly washed away over the weekend in the California desert, the qualifying school tournament in La Quinta bringing his swing back to life, within a whisper of regaining his PGA Tour card.
Between the final nine holes and a return to a nation's consciousness this week, Martin lost his touch, dissolving into two double bogeys and one broken heart.
"I left very discouraged," Martin said by phone from his home in Eugene, Ore., this week. "(With) all the disappointment from the last three years, to falter like I did over the last nine holes at La Quinta & it really hurt; even more than I thought it would."
He has never used his leg as an excuse and insisted, "I'm not going to start now," over his late collapse. Still, he has a degenerative condition that eventually could leave him an amputee. Martin has a defect called Klippel-Trenauney-Weber Syndrome, where blood flows into his leg but struggles to make it out. It leaves his leg swollen, bleeding internally and with a pain we probably couldn't comprehend unless someone repeatedly swung a sledgehammer into our leg.
I wonder how many of us would continue chasing our dreams if we were faced with the possibility of losing a leg at any time?
