In the case of PGA Tour, Inc. v. Casey Martin (2001), the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that Martin was being denied his rights under the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) by virtue of the Professional Golfers' Association's insistence that Mr. Martin walk the entirety of the golf courses on which he competed under the association's sponsorship. Martin suffers from a painful, debilitating circulatory condition that makes walking any distance inordinately difficult. Under the ADA, employers and public facilities must make appropriate accommodations for the disabled, a requirement that the PGA argued was not applicable in this case. The association's attorneys argued that the physical challenge of walking the entirety of a golf course was an integral component of the broader athletic competition and that allowing Martin to drive the course in a golf cart provided him an unfair advantage over his competitors.
Many professional golfers opposed Casey Martin's efforts to be allowed to use a golf cart, arguing that professional athletes are expected to be capable of performing the acts associated with the sport in question without any special accommodations. The PGA, in its opposition to Martin, enlisted the support of two of the game's most venerated personalities, Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer. Some prominent professional golfers, namely Tom Lehman and Greg Norman, supported Martin's cause.
The implications of Martin's case for others with disabilities was minimal. The ADA had already become law, and its application has been widespread in public and private facilities. A history of case law exists irrespective of Martin's legal efforts. With respect to professional sports, the impact has also been minimal. Either an individual is physically and emotionally capable of performing at the level required or he or she is not, and physically-disabled golfers generally make little effort at competing at the professional level. Most athletes accept that a requirement to make accommodations for their individual physical conditions is irrational considering the multitude of injuries they endure during the course of their careers anyway. Players with torn ligaments or broken bones, for example, do not expect the leagues in which they compete to allow the use of wheelchairs or crutches on fields of play. While the use of a golf cart hardly qualifies as such an example, the underlying rationale remains sound: either an individual can meet the physical standards necessary to compete with his or her colleagues or he or she cannot. Those who cannot compete because they are too small, cannot jump high enough or have a medical condition that precludes competition on a professional level generally move on to other pursuits.
There are other situations that complicate the debate surrounding the case of Casey Martin, and those involve the use of banned medications to address legitimate medical conditions like depression and anxiety and respiratory ailments. Inhalers and anti-depressants may contain controlled substances that are listed under "performance-enhancing" medications, and their presence in urine analyses or blood tests has, in the past, led to problems for athletes. The debate over the long-term implications of PGA Tour, Inc. v. Casey Martin, consequently, continues.
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