Many athletes take for granted their ability to compete in their respective sport without any hurdles. The athletes competing in the National Amputee Golf Association (NAGA) Championships hold a different perspective. Both amputee and adaptive golfers alike share a collective understanding, but each athlete has their own barriers.
The 75th National Amputee and Adaptive Golf Championship and 34th Senior National Amputee Golf Open Championship are coming to the Eugene, Cascades & Coast region for the first time September 16–19, 2024. The two events will be the first adaptive golf tournaments Emerald Valley Golf & Resort in Creswell, Ore., has hosted.
World War II veteran Dale Bourisseau came home with a below knee amputation but didn’t let that stop him from returning to golf. After his amputation, Bourisseau always sought out amputee-specific golf tournaments. By 1954, Bourisseau, along with 12 others, founded the National Amputee Golf Association through the support of the Professional Golf Association (PGA) and the United States Golf Association (USGA). NAGA now has more than 2,000 members in the US, and the organization has 200 members from 17 other countries across the globe.
In 2016, NAGA invited adaptive players to participate in the championship. Before that decision, athletes had to have an amputation to qualify for the tournament.
“Every amputee is an adaptive player, but not every adaptive player is an amputee, and that's the kind of conundrum that we're in right now,” said Jim Curley, president of the Western Amputee Golf Association (WAGA). “Amputees that are newer to disabled golf really only know adaptive golf, so all the amputees are migrating toward adaptive golf.”
Although the organization’s goal has always been to create a space for like athletes to grow in their sport and as individuals alongside one another, many of the amputee athletes were feeling like the allowance of non-amputees to compete against them was unfair.
“It's just nice to have a tournament that's just amputee,” said Chad Pfeifer, three-time National Amputee Champion and amputee golf public figure. “They've done some tournaments in the past where they let all disabilities play, and they have an associate's division. It's just a fantastic community. You get around all these other golfers. We all have similar stories, but in different ways. We all love golf, and we're all amputees, so it's just a great community to be a part of, and it's a great tournament.”
Because of this issue, the organization has decided to allow both adaptive and amputee golfers to compete in this year’s championships, but only amputee athletes will have the opportunity to compete for the title of NAGA Champion.
“At the end of the day, I think it's what needs to be done to get that word out,” Curley said. “We're all adaptive golfers. We [amputee golfers] just want to have our own championship.”
The Western Association has been awarded the championships for the first time in over four years, and Curley hopes to make it a championship the community remembers.
Curley experienced the game he has loved for 55 years both as an able-bodied athlete and as an amputee. His circumstances changed, but the one constant throughout his journey has been golf.
At the age of 13, Curley went out to his neighborhood golf course in Germantown, Pa., with one of his friends and played a round of golf for the first time. It was at that moment that he fell in love with the sport and knew it would be in his life from then on. For the next six years, Curly spent his days out on the green and played the sport he loved all through high school.
“I got to mess around on the range a little bit, so I ended up getting a job on the range and grabbed a club and just started hitting balls,” Curley said. “I liked it, so I played through high school.”
Once the time came to decide his career path post high school, Curley knew that college wasn’t his next step. It was 1975, and the sprinkler code act was changed, so all government buildings had to be retrofitted with fire sprinklers, and any new construction had to include these new sprinklers. Instead of having one apprentice, the Philadelphia shop hired 15 apprentices coming in that year.
“I was number one on the list and was scheduled to report the day after Labor Day, 1975,” Curley said. “July 28 was my accident, so I never made it to apprentice school.”
After losing his leg above the knee at the age of 19, Curley spent the next six months in and out of surgeries, physical therapy appointments and rehab. His life had changed forever in some ways, but in others, it stayed exactly the same. Curley got back on the golf course as soon as he could and adapted to golf with his new prosthetic leg.
Throughout his hours of therapy, Curley grew to appreciate all of the help others gave him on his long path to recovery. It was in those long hours of physical therapy that he realized his next career step—becoming a physical therapist.
“At some point within the six months of rehab I got my first leg,” Curley said. “When I went to rehab and [physical therapy], I just thought it was pretty cool. So that really piqued my interest.”
Now, at the age of 68, Curley has been practicing physical therapy for 46 years—a profession he started three years after losing his leg. His connection to the amputee world and golf led him to the NAGA community where he competed in tournaments across the country and around the world. After moving out west from Pennsylvania, Curley immediately got involved with WAGA where he is now the president of the organization.
Through his role with WAGA and his connections in the amputee and adaptive golf community, Curley has been able to bring several high-profile amputees to this tournament including Pfeifer. While Curley was reintroduced to golf immediately after losing his leg, many amputees don’t find the game until after becoming an amputee. This was the case for Pfeifer.
Chad Pfeifer Amputee Golf Champion
Growing up in a competitive family, Pfeifer played baseball, football and basketball throughout his childhood, continuing with baseball through college. Pfeifer spent his first two years at Blue Mountain Community College before transferring to Northwest Nazarene University for his final two years of college and baseball. It was during his sophomore year when 9/11 happened.
“It was actually my sophomore year there when September 11 happened in 2001, so it was actually then when I felt like I wanted to join the military,” Pfeifer said. “I kind of had a conversation with my dad, and my dad said, ‘You know, you can always join the military after college. You can't always play college baseball.’”
The moment Pfeifer graduated, he knew he was meant to join the military.
On April 12, 2007, just over a year after joining the Army, his truck was hit by an IED. After that accident, Pfeifer was transferred from his base in Iraq to a hospital in Germany. He had no choice but to have his left leg amputated above the knee, and Pfeifer was medically retired.
“The surgeons there decided that I had a bunch of shrapnel damage, and my knee was beyond salvageable,” Pfeifer said. “They ended up amputating my left leg above the knee, and so that's how I became an above knee amputee.”
Pfeifer then started therapy at Brooke Army Medical Center in Fort Sam Houston, Texas. The facility not only helped him regain and relearn the skills he lost, but it also helped him find a passion and goal again. For Pfeifer, that next challenge was golf.
“Golf was never on the radar for [my family],” Pfeifer said. “When I was growing up, I always thought golf was a rich person sport or old person sport. The only people I ever knew that played golf are kind of old retired people.”
Every morning, Pfeifer would go through his therapy sessions, and then spend his afternoons and evenings on the golf course. He not only used golf as a way to get back into exercise, but he also used it as a form of mental and emotional therapy throughout the rehabilitation process.
Golf wasn’t the only sport the center had for veterans to learn, practice or experience. They would find a way for everyone to get involved in something that interested them.
Learning to play golf wasn’t Pfeifer’s only interest in the sport, however. His goal beyond the game was to connect with other wounded veterans on the course and give back to the community through the game. He would see other veterans who were missing limbs or had severe disabilities, but they never let those barriers slow them down. Instead, they use their stories to inspire others.
“They want to get other veterans into their passion or see other veterans find a passion,” Pfeifer said. “I get to travel around the country and around the world, getting to meet other veterans. If they get into golf, that's awesome, because I know what golf’s done for me.”
For several years, Pfeifer had the dream of becoming a professional golfer and making the PGA Tour, but he realized that being a pro didn’t shape who he was as a person. Instead, Pfeifer hopes to pass his passion for the game as an amputee on for future generations through his non-profit, Moving Foreward. This organization is made up of a group of talented disabled golfers whose purpose is to instruct, motivate and help disabled individuals.
“I love golf, and I love playing golf, but to have people come up to me and say that what I'm doing is inspiring them is really rewarding for me,” Pfeifer said. “It was never really my purpose or my goal. The fact that it's happened, it kind of changed my purpose.”
The original goal of the NAGA Championships was to have upwards of 120 participants, but instead of pushing registration and having the only objective be to fill the tournament, Curly feels more strongly about the morals and reputation change of this year’s tournament in particular. Creating a space for athletes to come together and play with similar individuals has become the purpose of the 2024 NAGA Championships.
“The best thing that could happen this year is that the message gets out that NAGA is not dead,” Curley said. “There's a place for amputees to come, be friends with each other, enjoy a week together, play a good competitive tournament and just share some life experiences. That's what it's all about for us.”
In addition to the tournament, David’s Chair Mobility Systems will be sponsoring a clinic open to the public on Sunday, September 15 prior to the NAGA Championships. Travel Lane County will also be sponsoring an excursion for athletes’ families and supporters at local wineries.
