Chicago Adaptive Open – Champions in every way

Writing from Lemont, Illinois

Sunday, June 30, 2024

Over this weekend a remarkable thing happened at Cog Hill Golf & Country Club, where many remarkable things have happened over nearly a century.

A golf tournament was held and everyone won.

This was not your normal tournament, one along the lines of the Western Open, which had a 20-year residence at Cog Hill, or even a country club’s member-guest, where the winners grin and the losers order an extra gin and tonic.

This was the inaugural Chicago Adaptive Open, where the less-than-able bodied took to Cog’s No. 3 course to chase after an overall title, victories in 16 classes, and a total purse of $15,000 split among leaders in those classes.

Conducted by the Chicago District Golf Association and featuring close to 50 participants, the CAO proves nothing is impossible in golf. Some players had one hand, others one arm, some one leg. Some were mentally impaired. Some were in motorized carts adapted so they could roll up to the ball, even on the green, to play a shot.

All took your breath away.

What the able-bodied among us struggle with – hitting a fairway, hitting a green, sometimes just hitting the ball – these ladies and gentlemen do with ease. Perfect, they are not, but their consistency in the face of what they deal with puts the rest of us to shame.

This considerable talent arrived from the four winds on Friday, when practice rounds were held. The participants were feted at a get-together at Midwest Golf House, the CDGA’s home, in conjunction with the unveiling of must-see exhibits on the history of Chicago-area golf, focusing on the club manufacturing business that once dominated the industry and still thrives.

Meeting some of the players was a treat. They consider golf a game, as we do, and never mind they may be swinging a club with one hand. The basic challenge remains, and the only handicap in their mind is a 2.3 or whatever their index is at the moment.

The CDGA arranged for an online telecast of the final holes, Dan Roan among those calling the action, which allowed those who couldn’t make it to Cog to take in the action. The overall winner was 23-year-old Jarrett Fultz, an Arizona resident with cerebral palsy. The hand tremors he lives with makes the game even more of a crapshoot, but he piled up four birdies on the front nine and scored 1-under 71 on Sunday, the only under-par round of the weekend, to win with a 36-hole total of 4-over 148, edging Ryanne Jackson of Florida by a stroke.

The key for Fultz was a four-footer for par on the par-5 17th.

“I made a clutch short putt,” Fultz told the CDGA. “I knew I wanted to make par on a short par-5 that would feel bad to bogey.”

Jackson, the overnight leader with an opening 72, closed with a 77, so was both runner-up and the winner of the women’s division.

“You can’t be upset when someone outplays you, and I didn’t have my best today,” Jackson told the CDGA. “There’s always the next tournament and next year for this one.”

The next tournament for Jackson is the U.S. Adaptive Open, conducted by the USGA, played July 8-10 at Sand Creek Station in Newton, Kan. She happens to be the defending champion.

– Tim Cronin