For the love of the game

It wasn’t like Dennis Reger slept through golf’s latest Age of Technology, but he pretty much missed it, just the same.

That happens when you put your clubs away for the better part of 29 years, which is what Reger, a PGA professional and former owner of Valley View Golf Course, was forced to do after being diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis while still in his early 20s.

But today, thanks to advancements in the treatment of his once-debilitating disease, the 64-year-old Reger is back hitting golf balls on a regular basis at his old course, a nine-hole executive-style layout that was renamed Trailhead at Liberty Lake shortly after Reger sold it to the city of Liberty Lake in 2002.

And he occasionally plays a friendly round of golf with friends, having shot a more-than-respectable 73 during a recent outing.

“It’s just exhilarating to be playing again,” admitted Reger, whose late father, Austin, was the first head professional at Liberty Lake Golf Course when it opened in the spring of 1959.

And as he continues his comeback, Reger marvels almost as much at the technological advancements in golf clubs and equipment as he does in the medical advancements that have allowed him to reacquaint himself with the game he has loved and been around since he was a child.

“It’s unbelievable,” he said of the clubs he is using today. “Back when I was playing a lot in my early 20s, I was using, probably, the best equipment available.”

That equipment, Reger recalled, included persimmon-headed woods and forged blade irons with carbon steel shafts.

Today, Reger swings a driver with a massive titanium head and graphite shaft. His irons feature a low center of gravity that helps produce soaring approach shots even when his contact isn’t as pure as he would prefer.

“It’s amazing,” he said of his new equipment. “The ball just pops off the club when I hit it. You don’t have to try, anymore, to get it airborne. The clubs make that simple.”

Reger has even added a hybrid club to his bag, which he claims has “taken the horror out” of the 218-yard, par-3 12th hole at Downriver Golf Course.

“I can remember when I used to just try to hit a 2-iron somewhere out in front of that green and try to get it up and down,” Reger recalled. “But with the hybrid you can carry the ball, without my fear, all the way to the green and stop it.”

Despite his severe problems with rheumatoid arthritis – an autoimmune disease that causes chronic inflammation of joints and, in some cases, inflammation of tissue around the joints and other organs, as well – Reger remained in the golf business, running the pro shop and giving lessons at Valley View, which his family had purchased from the Schneidmiller Land Company in 1988.

He read about all of the new space-age materials that were being used by golf club designers and about how forgiving the new clubs could be. But because he could no longer properly hold a club in his gnarled fingers, he had no hands-on experience to draw from.

“As far as golf was concerned, I was in a depression,” Reger recalled. “I didn’t even want to try to hit a ball.”

Because of the pain and weakness in his hands, Reger was forced to teach the golf swing by holding the club at the wrong end.

“It was the only way I could make it work,” he explained, “which wasn’t probably the best for my students.”

Still, Reger had plenty to offer in the way of knowledge about the game.

As a young man in his early 20s, he was an accomplished player with a playing resume that included a second-place finish in the Lilac City Invitational.

But it was at about that same time when doctors first diagnosed his disease, which was just starting to damage the joints in his hands, hips and knees.

“Doctors told me back then that I shouldn’t plan for a comfortable old age,” Reger recalled. “They said I should plan for something you can do sitting or wheeling around.”

As the disease progressed, Reger found himself forced to withdraw from several local tournaments and, in a couple of instances, having to be helped off the course because of the pain in his legs.

“I was in my late 20s when I realized I just couldn’t play any more,” Reger explained. “It was in 1976 that I stopped playing, and I didn’t play again for 29 years.”

During his long separation from golf, Reger was treated for his aggressive form of arthritis by some of the foremost medical authorities in the country.

“I ran the gamut as far as drugs and various kinds of treatments were concerned,” he said. “and I dealt with some pretty serious side effects from the drugs, as well.”

Still, nothing seemed to slow the onslaught of the disease.

According to Reger, he has undergone five surgeries in an effort to combat his arthritis. He had the knuckles on his left hand replaced with artificial joints during one operation. And during another – to ease the complications of hammer toe in his left foot – doctors broke all of his toes and straightened them by inserting metal pins.

The surgeries allowed Reger to remain ambulatory and continue working at his golf course. But it wasn’t until after he sold Valley View in 2002 that doctors put him on a new medication that eventually allowed him start swinging the golf club once again.

Reger remembers the first time he was introduced to Remicade, which has to be administered intravenously.

“Halfway through the treatment, I could feel the difference,” he said. “The doctor said that wasn’t possible, but when I walked out of there I was standing straight up with my chin pointed forward, which was something I couldn’t do before.”

In the spring of 2003, Reger was able hold a club once again and started hitting easy chip shots around his home. The next year he started making full swings and today he is able to practice for extended periods of time.

Reger says he has played only “seven or eight” actual rounds of golf since finding a way to deal with his arthritis. But he was able to break 80 during two of those, which prompted him to declare himself a “true miracle of modern medicine.”

It has been a long, painful road back for Reger, who said he would like to get his amateur status back and, perhaps, play in few local events.

“I’m not sure what I’m going to do,” he admitted, “but I do know it’s a real privilege to be playing golf again.”