BY MICHAEL BURKE
mburke@journaltimes.com | Posted: Monday, June 1, 2009 12:00 am
UNION GROVE - For years, Jeanne Esch hasn't let the fact that she's confined to a wheelchair keep her off the golf course.
That's no longer the case, and so she wants everyone with a disability to have that same I-can-play-too attitude about golf.
Most recently, through her nonprofit Go Fore Golf program, a group of special education students at Union Grove High School found themselves swiping at balls at Ives Grove Golf Links.
Generally, said special education teacher Rebecca Gunville, "They don't have a lot of confidence to even try."
But Esch's organization gives them encouragement, opportunity and - importantly - adaptations when they need them. When Esch, a resident of Bloomfield, Mich., plays, she uses a harness that hooks to her wheelchair. It helps her stand and take her shot.
So, despite being in a wheelchair since 1992 with a neuromuscular disease, she was able to take up golf again in 2000. She learned how with the help of a Lansing, Mich., hospital.
"I said, 'This is great, but I want to be able to do this independently.' "
First they devised the harness. Then they used a Velcro on golf glove and club handle to help overcome lack of strength and muscular control.
Now, said Esch, an Oak Creek native, she usually plays about once a week - sometimes two or three times.
"I can't usually do nine holes unless it's a little par 3 course," she said. "I will play two or three holes and then take a break," but ride along in a golf cart to stay with her group.
"It's been really good for me," Esch said. "Initially, it gave me my friends back again."
During the recent outing at Ives Grove, Carlee Barker was using the Velcro glove and club handle that Esch uses. The high school junior said she'd played golf a few times with her father or friends, but the Velcro system made it easier.
She's naturally right-handed but came out of a serious illness in eighth grade paralyzed on her right side. So the Velcro allowed a better one-handed, left-handed swing.
After the first day of Go Fore Golf, Gunville said, Barker "was thrilled … and she doesn't get excited about very many things."
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Another Union Grove student, Jake Basina, has cerebral palsy and was taking his whacks from his wheelchair at Ives Grove. He said it was his first time on a golf course, and making contact with the ball was tough.
However, said Basina - who has a cousin attending college on a golf scholarship, "I can do more than I thought I'd be able to."
From her own modest success in playing golf came Esch's desire to encourage others with disabilities to try the game. In 2003, she established Go Fore Golf.
"That's how it kind of evolved," she said. She found other wheelchair sports, such as basketball and racing, are much more intense and require so much arm strength that they leave a lot of people on the sidelines.
"Golf, it's a game where you always play against the course or yourself. I thought more people need to be doing this, doing it with their families."
Esch never charges Go Fore Golf participants. Donations provide what is needed to keep the program going - course time, sometimes transportation and so on.
She chose Union Grove High School, her first program in this area - where many of her relatives attended. Esch did the program over three days, with the first day being an indoor introduction to the sport and the next two days on the course.
The follow-up will be a golf scramble event in Door County for students and their families who have attended her programs.
From her own experiences, Esch said she believes golf can help make a disabled person feel like a member of the community. "If you see me in the grocery store, you might kind of nod," she said.
"But if you see me out on the golf course, we might have a conversation."