So Martin sued under the Americans with Disabilities Act, a law enacted in 1990 to give the disabled access to buildings, recreation and jobs. With the Justice Department firmly in his corner, Martin claimed the law's protection, saying his use of the cart is a reasonable modification to the rules to accommodate his disability. A cart wouldn't give him a competitive advantage, he asserted, it would merely level the playing field. The PGA countered that granting his request would nature of the game by changing the substantive rules of play for one individual. That this is a federal case is a testament to how absurdly elastic our civil rights laws have become.
Golf is a game.
Organizers of a game should be allowed to set any rules they want without government kibitzing. If the PGA required tournament golfers to walk on their hands from the 16th to the 17th hole, then competitors, rather than run to court, should start practicing hand stands. Arguing before the courts, Martin and the department point to the use of golf carts on the senior tour and in the early rounds of the qualifying school competition for the PGA Tour and say, see, allowing carts wouldn't fundamentally alter the sport. But just because carts are used in some circumstances doesn't mean tournament organizers can't bar them in others. A comparable situation is a club-footed baseball pitcher in the National League claiming that he has a legal right to have a designated hitter because his disability makes it impossible for him to run the bases.