Martin’s Testimony Full Of Emotion He’d Walk If He Could, Golfer Says, Before Welling Up With Tears
Casey Martin wept Wednesday as he testified about the intense pain he feels when he walks the golf course, and how he doesn’t believe a cart would give him an advantage over other players.
“If I could trade my leg and a cart for their good leg, I would do it anytime, anywhere,” Martin told a packed federal courtroom.
Under gentle questioning from his lawyer, Martin gave a detailed description of the rare circulatory condition he has lived with since birth.
Instead of a vein along the bone of his lower right leg, he said he has a jumble of varicose veins. The valves that normally keep blood from flowing backward don’t work, so blood tends to pool in his lower leg whenever he stands, causing painful swelling.
“It feels like my leg is going to blow up,” he said, adding that the condition has gotten progressively worse over the past four years. “Every time I step, there’s a sharp pain in my shin.”
He described a match he played while at Stanford, and the intense pain that came after carrying his clubs over 36 holes. He said the opposing coach from the University of Arizona saw the agony he was in and told him: “Man, you’ve got to take a cart.” Martin said he replied: “I wouldn’t do it.”
With that, Martin choked up and reached for tissues to wipe away tears. His mother, his brother and his sister-in-law also cried. U.S. Magistrate Thomas Coffin called a five-minute recess.
Martin has invoked the Americans with Disabilities Act in his lawsuit against the PGA Tour that seeks to allow him to ride instead of walk at professional events. His doctors say walking is not only painful, it’s dangerous, causing a weakening of the leg that could result in a break and possibly amputation.
PGA Tour lawyers contend allowing Martin a cart would give him an unfair advantage. They maintain walking offers a test of stamina that adds to the competition and is an integral part of tournament golf.
Under cross-examination, PGA Tour lawyer William Maledon compared having a cart to the advantage of carrying extra clubs.
Martin said that was an unfair comparison. “That’s shotmaking, that’s where the game is played, with your clubs.”
Before it became too painful for him, Martin said he always preferred walking rather than riding a cart. “The main reason is just the rhythm you get into when you walk.”
Even when in a cart, he said he must park it along a paved path and still must walk up to 100 yards a hole.
Earlier Wednesday, a PGA Tour executive testified carts are allowed at senior events because it’s a money-driven “nostalgia” tour, far less competitive than the top circuit where Martin seeks to ride.
“It’s an economic factor,” said Richard Ferris, chairman of the PGA Tour policy board. “If Arnold Palmer has an arthritic hip and can’t walk 18 holes … he’s an economic draw. That’s why we allow them to use carts.”
“The Nike Tour and the PGA Tour are golf at its highest level,” he said. “The senior tour is not competition at its highest level. The Senior Tour is a nostalgia tour.”
The magistrate, who is hearing the case without a jury, has given Martin the chance to ride a cart on the Nike Tour pending the outcome of this trial. Last month, the 25-year-old golfer won the tour’s event in Lakeland, Fla., generating an outpouring of public support. Martin has since become the latest spokesman for Nike’s new slogan: “I Can.”