NATIONAL AMPUTEE GOLF CHAMPIONSHIPS

Plenty of good shots

Competitors show uncanny skills while getting off one-liners

BY ERIK BOLAND
Newsday.com STAFF WRITER

August 25, 2005

Photo
Mike Reeder (Photo by Howard Schnapp)
Aug 24, 2005

Mike Reeder put a good stroke on the 30-foot uphill putt on the 17th hole at Bethpage Green yesterday, but as the ball approached the hole, Dennis Ithal, one of Reeder's playing partners, saw it needed a verbal nudge.

"Get legs! Get legs!" Ithal exhorted, drawing a loud laugh from Reeder.
Reeder, of course, doesn't have any legs.

Welcome to the 57th National Amputee Golf Championships, where there are no sacred cows, there's some really good golf and politically correct terms such as "physically challenged" and "differently abled" are avoided like three-putts.

"Oh, we're gimps, amps, whatever," said Reeder, a Marine who lost both his legs below the knee in a booby-trap explosion in 1970 in An Hoa, Vietnam. "We're not very P.C."

"If you spend any time around this group, you'll hear a number of hand, leg and arm jokes," said Marty Ebel, an attorney from Massachusetts who, like Reeder, is a double amputee. "Things like, 'Lend me a hand' or 'I don't have a leg to stand on.' They're mostly bad jokes. Normies [non-amputees] hear that stuff and their jaws drop."

Ebel, Reeder and the rest of the 85-player field have golf games that can cause a similar reaction. Three-time defending champion Ken Green from Middle Tennessee State, who wears a prosthesis on his left leg, shot 2-under-par 68 on the Red Course yesterday to lead the three-day event heading into today's final round.

Ebel, 47, never leaves his cart. Riding in a 700-pound SoloRider, Ebel maneuvers to his ball, picks a club from the bag strapped to the front, and swivels his seat into position to hit. He regularly exceeds 200 yards off the tee and is around most greens in regulation.

Ebel's SoloRider is a story in itself. A golf purist might cringe when Ebel drives the cart onto a green to putt. That same person would shake his or her head while searching the green for any indication Ebel's cart had been there.

"It exerts less pounds per square inch than a person does," said Ebel, who lost his legs in 1984 after an accident involving a front-loader vehicle.

Ebel played golf before his accident, but Reeder, 57, did not start until 17 years ago. In a golf store with a friend, Reeder picked up a club for the first time, smacked a ball cleanly into the net, and was hooked. Reeder, a 10-handicapper, tugs a wheelchair behind his golf cart, then shifts into the chair to hit balls off the tee or in the fairway. For short chips or on the greens, Reeder waddles to his ball on his stumps and uses a cut-down wedge or 22-inch putter.

"It [golf] has meant a lot to me," said Reeder, a ranger at Forest Crossing Golf Course in Franklin, Tenn. "If I could get Debbie [his wife of nearly 30 years] to play, my life would be complete."

Bethpage hosted last year's Eastern Amputee Championships, Bethpage superintendent Dave Catalano's first exposure to amputee golfers.

"I love having them here. It's great for the game, great for Bethpage," Catalano said.

He then added: "I'm envious that they play so much better than I do."
Friday 18 August 2006

National Amputee Golf Championships