Casey Martin, Golfer Who Didn't Have to Walk, Moves On

May 10, 2006 — -- Mark Twain famously called golf "a good walk spoiled." Casey Martin, who Tuesday was named the new men's golf coach at the University of Oregon, has played a lot of golf very well and never had a good walk doing it.

Martin's legacy in professional golf is that he is likely to be known forever as the golfer who didn't have to walk. His most famous victory wasn't on the course -- it was the case he won that allowed him to use a golf cart when he competed on the PGA Tour. That case went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Martin has lived with a circulatory disorder in his right leg since birth that is painful and debilitating, and has turned his leg into a mass of varicose veins that makes it extremely painful to walk the approximately 5 miles of an 18-hole golf course. Just making the walk from his cart to his ball sometimes challenged him. There is no cure for this rare condition known as Klippel-Trenaunay-Weber syndrome and there is a chance that Martin's leg may some day have to be amputated.

When I met him for the first time eight years ago, Martin had just gotten a temporary court injunction to ride in a cart in a tournament. ABC News was the only national media there that wasn't from the golfing world. I'm a golfer. Not a particularly good one, but a golfer. That's how I knew about Casey Martin and what he was trying to do.

Martin wasn't looking for pity or publicity. He didn't even have an agent at that point. He was a young golfer just out of college with a powerful swing and a bum leg who wanted the chance just to play.

His fellow professionals were split. Some were supportive, like Chi Chi Rodriquez, who told an interviewer, "If Franklin Roosevelt could run the country sitting in a wheelchair, Casey Martin can play tournament golf using a cart."

Others -- like Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus -- were less generous and even testified against Martin as his case made its way through the judicial system.

For our piece we interviewed Tiger Woods, a Stanford teammate of Martin, and like a lot of other pros Tiger was conflicted about whether or not Martin would have an advantage by using a cart. But Tiger expressed his personal feelings too and said that he knew Casey needed the cart play and hoped he would be given that right.

Our story aired on "World News Tonight" on a Thursday and concluded with Martin holing a shot from off the green to tie for the lead, prompting Peter Jennings to say, "With shots like that, who wouldn't want to play?"

That Sunday, Casey Martin, unbelievably, won the tournament in Florida, where we had met him. It was the only tournament he has won in his professional career.

A month later, I would see Martin win again in a Eugene, Ore., courtroom when a federal magistrate made his cart accommodation permanent by ruling that under the Federal Americans With Disabilities Act, Martin's cart only leveled the playing field for him and that he was entitled to that.

It's now five years since the Supreme Court upheld his right to ride, and even though Martin has earned close to a half million dollars playing golf, he has not played up to his standards in recent years. It's time to move on.

Martin told me that he has no regrets, but he would like to have accomplished more as a player. He appreciates that he was accepted by his peers, and that Jack Nicklaus is now a friend. But his leg hasn't changed, and it's something he can't forget about for more than a few minutes at a time.

Martin grew up in Eugene, so coaching the Oregon Ducks is coming home, and it's a position he's looking forward to.

"They didn't hire me to drive the bus. I'm going to be a hands-on coach," Martin said.

He said he hopes his players will learn by watching someone who has played at the highest competitive level. Ironically, he has walked the walk.