U.S. Supreme Court Sides with Disabled Golfer
By Kay Schriner (kays@uark.edu)
Casey Martin has won the right to use a golf cart in professional tournaments. In another case based on the Americans with Disabilities Act, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that Martin's use of the cart would not be a "fundamental alteration" of the game.
Martin has Klippel-Trenaunay-Weber Syndrome, a degenerative circulatory disorder that causes severe pain and impairs his ability to walk. He had sued PGA Tour, Inc. under Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act, claiming use of a golf cart was a reasonable modification, and did not represent a fundamental alteration of the game of golf.
PGA Tour, Inc., the organization that sponsors golf tournaments on three annual tours, argued that Martin's use of a golf cart during competition would give him an advantage over other players. They said that walking the approximately 5 mile course is a significant part of the game by causing fatigue. A player who was not required to walk the course, they argued, would not experience fatigue and thus would be at an advantage.
When Martin competed in college-level golf tournaments, he was allowed to use a cart after making a written request to the Pacific 10 Conference and the National Collegiate Athletic Association. His Stanford University coach has testified that other coaches did not believe Martin was given a competitive advantage by the ruling. They "recognized Casey for the person he was, and what he was doing with his life, and every coach, to my knowledge, and every player wanted Casey in the tournament and they welcomed him there," he said.
The Supreme Court held that the PGA had not proved its contention that walking was a fundamental requirement of golf. Noting that golf carts are used in earlier rounds of the tournament, the Court found that "[t]he walking rule is . . . based on an optional condition buried in an appendix to the Rules of Golf . . . " and thus "is not an essential attribute of the game itself."
In a vigorous dissent, Justice Antonin Scalia (joined by Justice Clarence Thomas), characterized the majority's opinion as a "benevolent compassion that the law does not place it within our power to impose." The decision, he said, "distorts the text of Title III, the structure of the ADA, and common sense." Seeing no reason for the Court to get involved in the question of what rules are essential to the conduct of a game of golf, Justice Scalia said that "Either out of humility or out of self-respect (one or the other) the Court should decline to answer this incredibly difficult and incredibly silly question."
Justice Scalia argued that the rules of golf "are (as in all games) entirely arbitrary, and there is no basis on which anyone - even the Supreme Court of the United States - can pronounce one or another them to be 'nonessential' if the rulemaker . . . deems it to be essential . . . ."
The text of the Court's opinion can be found at http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/00slipopinion.html
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