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Disabled doesn't
apply
With help of a knowing friend, Derek Gemmet
clears any hurdles golf presents
By Blaine Newnham, For PNGA Media
Above: Derek Gemmet passed his Players
Ability Test with a 72-75--147 in one day at Tumwater Valley
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The old boys at Riverside Golf and Country Club in Portland knew there
was something special about young Derek Gemmet.
He wouldn’t let them help him up when he’d topple over
on the practice range.
When he got older he wouldn’t use a disabled parking spot to
unload the wheelchair from his pickup. Or, given the option to take
two days to pass the 36-hole Players Ability Test to become an apprentice
golf pro, he had to do it in one day.
Like everyone else.
The reality is that Gemmet isn’t like everyone else. He was
diagnosed at 15 months old with cerebral palsy, left on life’s
sidelines to drag his legs behind him.
Except there was a spot for him in the junior program at Riverside,
an opportunity to swing a golf club. A chance to be included.
“If he could get himself balanced,” said his dad, Mike,
“he could hit a ball. Not very far, 15 to 20 yards, at first,
when he was about 8, but you could tell he had good hand-eye coordination.
He absolutely loved it.”
The affair never subsided. He’d practice five hours a day. At
12, he and his dad could keep from finishing last in father-and-son
competitions. He played high school golf at Grant High in Portland,
as a senior making it to districts with his team.
He went off to College of the Desert in Palm Springs, Calif., to get
a degree in golf management. He wanted to make golf his life’s
work, but to be a pro he’d have to pass the ability test, which
meant scoring no more than 5- or 6-over par -- depending on the difficulty
of the course -- over 36 holes. In one day.
He failed 18 times, nearly quit trying, and finally, after meeting
up with Mike Adams, turned the trick last September at Tumwater Valley
Golf Club, shooting an even-par 72 in the morning fog over a 7,100-yard
course and a better-than-that 75 in the strong, swirling afternoon
winds.
The 72 equaled his personal best.
You wonder how he could do it as you watch him exchange his crutches
for a driver on the first tee. He is allowed to ride in a cart, but
faces punishing climbs on his crutches to greens and tees, and especially
in and out of greenside bunkers.
In the Northwest, he can even face his own personal agony of “cart
paths only.”
Adams, who lives in Portland and plays at Tualatin Country Club, had
competed in the British and U.S. Amateurs. But four years ago he was
himself struck down by a spinal infection that doctors said would
leave him a quadriplegic, if he lived at all.
Adams fought back. He not only walked, but won a golf tournament.
Along the way he was so impressed with what the goal of playing golf
did for him in his recovery and what it could do for others, that
he started the Mike Adams Foundation to bring the disabled and golf
together. Casey Martin is on his board of directors. In honor of his
efforts, Adams was named the 2005 Member of the Year by the Oregon
Golf Association.
Mike Gemmet admits that his son’s game -- and enthusiasm --
was beginning to fade when he hooked up with Adams.
“I have
great respect for him, but it wasn’t always easy,” said
Adams. “We locked horns. I told him I’d help him but he
could never use his disability as an excuse and if he were even a
minute late for a lesson, I’d be gone.”
Adams helped reshape Gemmet’s game. The problem was his short
game.
“He was a lousy putter,’’ said Adams, “his
eyes were a foot short of the ball and the toe of the putter stuck
up in the air.
“He also didn’t see putts well because he couldn’t
walk around them and look things over as most of us do.”
Gemmet has great balance. He has to or he would fall down. He makes
no weight shift, because he can’t, Adams said.
“He has no mechanical thoughts, none, zero. He is very conscious
of the target; he plays strictly by feel and repetition.
“In the swing, his head never moves.”
From their disabled perspectives, Gemmet, now 25, and Adams share
the hope they can help change people’s lives.
“Working with Derek has been the highlight of my life in golf,”
said Adams. “I’d rather have been on this journey with
him than win the U.S. Open. I love the guy.”
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