Casey Martin

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What's up with this Guy?

Sorry you got stuck with the bum's rush...
The fact is that you are not playing golf within the rules. Use crutches? Peddle a bike with one leg? I dunno, clearly you are giving yourself an advantage when it is 120 Degrees. Good thing he doesn't have Tiger's swing.
Give a one armed guy a bionic arm, send him to an arm wrestling competition and see what they say?
What next? Colin Montgomerie's back is acting up again? Give him a cart and have someone putt for him?

Terrible ruling. Appeal that Decision.

[Gary Hill]

He is playing within the Rules.

The Rules of Golf clearly state: Equipment includes a golf cart, whether or not motorized.

This is PGA Tour prohibition only.

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...

[NoBack]

opinion time.............i think it was a fair ruling for him and him only.
I do agree the heat and walking in it is tough enough for any one to endure but i also beleive that riding in a cart is a distraction to your game. I beleive all cases should be done one by one and if medical proof is shown and that the golfer has game why not. As far as bad back days and so on .....too bad!!! All will have bad back days and have to play through it, or dont play. Casey Martin will have to play this way for the rest of life. Good luck Casey!!

[Gary Hill]

I have studied the actual PGA Tour v Casey Martin Supreme Court decision and have come to some startling conclusions.

The case centers around the application of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA). Martin argued his case under two sections. Title I covers employment discrimination and Title III covers discrimination by places of public accommodation.

Title I was ruled not to apply because PGA Tour players are independent contractors.

Title III protects only particular places and persons. The places must be places of public accommodation and the person must be an individual seeking enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, advantages, or accommodations of the covered place.

The Title III lists examples of public accommodation and defines those individuals enjoying the "the public accommodation" as customers. The persons "gathering" at an auditorium are covered by the Act, but those contracted to clean the auditorium are not.

The Court ruling pronounces Martin to be a "customer" of the PGA Tour.

"That seems to me quite incredible. The PGA TOUR is a professional sporting event, staged for the entertainment of a live and TV audience, the receipts from whom (the TV audience’s admission price is paid by advertisers) pay the expenses of the tour, including the cash prizes for the winning golfers. The professional golfers on the tour are no more "enjoying" (the statutory term) the entertainment that the tour provides, or the facilities of the golf courses on which it is held, than professional baseball players "enjoy" the baseball games in which they play or the facilities of Yankee Stadium. To be sure, professional ballplayers participate in the games, and use the ballfield, but no one in his right mind would think that they are customers of the American League or of Yankee Stadium. They are themselves the entertainment that the customers pay to watch. And professional golfers are no different. It makes not a bit of difference, insofar as their "customer" status is concerned, that the remuneration for their performance (unlike most of the remuneration for ballplayers) is not fixed but contingent, the purses for the winners in the various events, and the compensation from product endorsements that consistent winners are assured. The compensation of many independent contractors is contingent upon their success -real estate brokers, for example, or insurance salesmen." - Supreme Court Justice Scalia

The Court points out that the ADA specifically identifies golf courses as places of public accommodation. However, this particular article deals with exercise and recreation. Martin was not a customer seeking recreation or exercise, he was a professional athlete selling it. This is completely different from John Q. Public being denied access to an amusement area.

The Court relies heavily on the public access to Q-School and U.S. Open qualifying. The Q-School is no more a "privilege" offered to the public than an open casting call for actors in a movie. Amateur golfers may try to make the grade just as amateur actors, but the purpose is to hire. Those bidding for employment are not converted into customers. By this reasoning, every person seeking employment at Yankee Stadium would magically be transformed into a customer.

Having incorrectly concluded that Title III applies to "customers" of professional golf, the Supreme Court ignores the next obstacle.

The ADA requires that businesses make reasonable modifications of "policies, practices, or procedures" as are necessary to "afford" goods, services, and privileges to persons with disabilities, but it EXPLICITLY does not require modifications that would fundamentally alter the nature of the goods, services, and privileges. An appeals court has ruled that a camera store must not refuse to sell cameras to a disabled persons, but it is NOT required to stock cameras designed for such purposes. It is not a judicial function to decide if shoes stores SHOULD sell single shoes to persons with one leg or how many braille books Chapters must keep on its shelves.

So even if Martin is considered a "customer" of the PGA Tour, it is just as ludicrous for the PGA Tour to change their rules of competition as it is to expect a shoe store to sell single shoes. The PGA Tour cannot deny him access because of his disability, but it is written in the regulations of the ADA that it need not provide him with a different game.

The Court bases its decision on whether riding would fundamentally alter the nature of the game.

Since the Court has already incorrectly concluded that Martin is a "customer" of the PGA Tour and the Rules are "policies, practices, and procedures" by which access to the PGA Tour is provided, they must now confront the question of whether riding would fundamentally alter the nature of the PGA Tour.

The Court supports its decision by answering two questions:

1. Whether the essence or an "essential" aspect would be altered. No.
2. Would the change give the disabled player an advantage over other players. No.

Question 1 incorrectly assumes that the PGA Tour has some legal obligation to play classic sociable golf and it is the duty of the Supreme Court of the Unites States under authority from Congress in pursuance of the Federal Government's power to regulate commerce with States and foreign Nations to decide "Which rules are essential to Golf"? Ridiculous!!!
The Court has no more right to decide that than whether the designated hitter in American League baseball is LEGAL.

It is quite impossible to determine whether any rule is essential. Is it essential to carry 14 clubs? The Court has already conceded in their decision that this number has changed over the years. The only thing that makes these rules essential is the PGA Tour's insistence on following them.

Having incorrectly concluded that classic sociable riding golf is the only golf that the PGA Tour is allowed to play, the Court moves on to the second part of its test: the competitive aspects of waiving this "non-essential" rule.

The Court finds that "the effects of change are mitigated by the fact that in the game of golf weather, a lucky bounce, and pure chance provide different conditions for each competitor and individual ability may not be the sole determinant of the outcome." Ridiculous!!!

Would you give me a break! Tiger Woods must be the luckiest man alive!

Pure chance is evenly distributed among the players, but allowing Martin to use a cart gives him a break ever time he plays.
Granting that there are variables affecting the competition, that fact does not justify adding a variable that favors only one player.

The Court finds that even with a cart, Martin will be just as fatigued as everyone else. The Court says that this proves the competition will not be affected.

LOOK CLOSELY AT THAT STATEMENT!!!!

All future questions of athletic discrimination will be based on whether waiving a "non-essential" rule would alter the competitive effect of the individual on the event and would special dispensation make him even with the other competitors.

Would a Major League baseball player with attention deficit disorder HAVE to be given four strikes because this would not alter the competitive effect of the individual on the game and this would make him even with other players? Ridiculous !!!

In the Courts finally step on its misguided journey, they again incorrectly misinterpreted the ADA.

The statute seeks to insure that a disabled person’s disability will not deny him equal access to competitive sporting events. It does insure him an equal chance to win. The latter is quite impossible, since the very nature of competitive sport is the measurement, by uniform rules, of unevenly distributed excellence. This unequal distribution is precisely what determines the winners and losers - and artificially to "even out" that distribution, by giving one or another player exemption from a rule that emphasizes his particular weakness, is to destroy the game. That is why the "handicaps" that are customary in social games of golf - which, by adding strokes to the scores of the good players and subtracting them from scores of the bad ones, "even out" the varying abilities - are NOT used in professional golf.

In the Court’s world, there is one set of rules that is "fair with respect to the able-bodied" but "individualized" rules, mandated by the ADA, for "talented but disabled athletes.". Ridiculous!!! The ADA mandates no such thing.

The Court's pompous moralizing about the judgement being decent, tolerate, and progressive was based on citing instances where exceptions were made to the rules. I submit that the managing bodies of professional sport will make FEWER exceptions for disabled people, thereby insuring this argument cannot be used against them in the future.

To summarize, the Court determined that the places that professional sports organizations rent for their exhibitions are "places of public accommodation" to the competing athletes, the athletes are "customers" of the organizations that pay them, rules of a made up game can be judged essential or non-essential by the court, and that Congress intended the Americans with Disabilities Act to provide that everyone gets to play professional sports by individualized rules to assure that no one's lack of ability will be a handicap.

NONSENSE!!!!!

[Kilroy]

Here Here Gary! I could not agree more. The PGA tour should not have lost this. I alwats thought the court was under a lot of preassure to be PC about this. To stretch the definition of customer and apply to a tour player is absolutely absurd.

BTW, aren't carts manditory at most of the bigger courses in the States? I think the whole issue is ridiculous. If Casey can ride, so should all be allowed if they choose.

Personally, I like to ride, but this is not about recreation, this is athletic competition, at the highest level.

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Would a Major League baseball player with attention deficit disorder HAVE to be given four strikes because this would not alter the competitive effect of the individual on the game and this would make him even with other players?

lol
laugh out loud...it's funny because it's true!