FARMINGDALE, N.Y.—Beginning on Thursday, the PGA Championship will feature virtually all of the best players in golf. Yet none of them will create a spectacle quite like a chain-smoking, pot-bellied 53-year-old ranked No. 1,848 in the world.
John Daly is set to become only the second golfer ever and the first since Casey Martin in 2012 to use a cart to get around at a major championship. At Bethpage Black, a public course on which carts are generally forbidden, Daly will ride in a topless cart supplied by the PGA of America.
The organization approved Daly’s application for a medical exemption—carts are otherwise banned at majors and other PGA Tour events—in which he cited osteoarthritis in his right knee. But there has been no such approval from the rest of the golf world, which has largely reacted to the news with a collective eye roll.
“I think walking is an integral part of being a professional golfer,” said CBS analyst Nick Faldo. “I’ll leave it at that.”
Tiger Woods made reference to his win at the 2008 U.S. Open, in which he played with a stress fracture in his left knee, while chiding Daly on Tuesday.
“Four days over a tough championship that is mentally and physically taxing takes its toll,” Woods said. “As far as J.D. taking a cart, well, I walked with a broken leg, so…”
At issue is a question that has been debated since Martin sued the PGA Tour for the right to use a cart in 1997: Should any golfer, however legitimate their disability, be permitted to use a cart while competing against players who are required to walk?
Martin, who had a birth defect in his right leg that made walking difficult, won his case in a ruling upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2001. The Americans With Disabilities Act bans discrimination based on disability in public places. Writing for the majority in the Supreme Court’s 7-2 decision, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote that allowing Martin to use a cart would not “fundamentally alter the nature” of professional golf.
Daly qualified for the tournament solely because he is a past champion, winning in 1991, and is considered unlikely to contend. He mostly plays on the PGA Tour Champions, the senior circuit that allows for carts. Yet he remains one of the game’s iconic players, known as much for his indulgences—drinking, smoking and gambling among them—as his booming drives. His famously colorful, zany pants make him impossible to miss.
“I hope I don’t get a lot of grief from the fans,” Daly told the Associated Press last week. “My knee is screwed. I had the meniscus cut out. I have osteoarthritis so bad…I can walk up a hill, I just can’t walk down one.” Daly’s agent did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday.
The PGA of America—the organization of club pros that is separate from the PGA Tour—allows players to apply for the use of a cart under an ADA exemption. A committee that includes a medical expert then reviews the player’s information and decides whether to grant the exemption.
Daly, who last made the cut at the tournament in 2012, continued to walk during the event until this year. But Bethpage Black, about 30 miles east of Manhattan, is a particularly hilly course.
“I can understand why he’d be daunted by trying to walk this,” PGA of America chief executive Seth Waugh said. “This is a proper golf course, right, and every hole essentially has elevation change. You might go from an elevated tee down to a fairway, back up to a green.”
Daly is scheduled to tee off at 12:54 p.m. ET on Thursday. When he arrived at the course for a practice round on Wednesday, he was issued a green cart with instructions on where he can and cannot take it. On most courses, that is generally self-evident. But at Bethpage Black, the rarity of what Daly is doing is highlighted by a minor problem: there are no cart paths.
Write to Brian Costa at brian.costa@wsj.com
https://www.wsj.com/articles/john-daly-ignites-golf-cart-debate-at-pga-championship-11558004400
2019-05-16 11:00:00Z
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