
Moving down the fairway of the 16th hole at the Blue Top Ridge Golf Course in Riverside, Iowa, Justin Hall forgot for a moment that he is paralyzed.
It wasn’t the first time.
“Adaptive sports gave me life,” Hall said. “Since getting paralyzed and being in a wheelchair, I’ve had opportunities I did not know or think I’d ever get.”
Hall was only in the Army a year before he was medically discharged in 2010. While in training at explosive ordnance disposal school, he broke his ribs and began having issues with the muscles in his back. Doctors later attributed those injuries to the onset of Alexander disease—a rare, degenerative neurological disorder.
His condition worsened. He had migraines. Muscular issues made standing painful and difficult. Then in 2019, he developed meningitis, which left him paralyzed in his spine from his C2 vertebra to his sacrum.
He thought the active lifestyle he lived before paralysis was over until his recreational therapist at the Department of Veterans Affairs introduced him to adaptive sports.
Hall was one of more than 200 veterans who attended the 2024 National Disabled Veterans Golf Clinic, a weeklong adaptive sports program, co-presented by DAV and the VA, in Iowa last September.
Hundreds of volunteers, golf coaches and therapists facilitate the week that exposes veterans with blindness or low vision, spinal injuries, amputations and traumatic brain injuries to the therapeutic benefits of golf and other activities, including kayaking, bicycling, bowling and shooting.
Hall’s first adaptive sports experience was at the 2023 National Disabled Veterans Winter Sports Clinic, also co-presented by DAV and the VA, in Snowmass, Colorado. He said that’s where he saw another paralyzed veteran tearing down a mountain on a sit-ski, changing his perception of what life after injury could look like.
From there, he sought other opportunities—pickleball, waterskiing, surfing and now golf—to help him adapt to daily life after paralysis.
This year was Hall’s first golf clinic. He never grasped it before his injury, even though his brother played competitively. Through coaching and with the assistance of a specialized golf cart that allows him to remain seated while playing, he’s now experiencing some success.
“Learning how to golf and actually driving and being able to make some chips, that blows my mind,” Hall said. “I couldn’t do that before … being in a chair. I’ve been able to figure out things and play sports and feel normal again.”
That sense of normalcy is a big part of the week, said DAV National Commander Daniel Contreras, who attended the clinic.
“As an avid golfer myself, I know how much the sport has enriched my own life,” he said. “It’s wonderful to see it made accessible to so many of my fellow veterans. The level of care the staff and volunteers put into this event is only outdone by the enthusiasm of the participants. You can see on their faces the joy it brings to be able to get out on the course and enjoy the day.”
Fostering that sense of normalcy are the transferable skills that adaptive sports provide veterans, said Suzanne Kenrick, a recreation therapist at the Augusta VA Medical Center in Georgia.
“We’re not trying to make an athlete out of anybody,” she said, emphasizing that the goal is to get veterans into independent, active lifestyles.
Kenrick’s role is to help make veterans comfortable while participating so they get the most out of the clinic regardless of disability.
Since each veteran’s case is different, she has to find ways to adjust and adapt mobility and sports equipment to best suit a person’s needs. She uses materials like straps, foam blocks, and even beachballs and pool noodles to manufacture solutions.
While at the driving range, Kenrick was cutting and shaping a foam block with a reciprocating saw to help alleviate foot and leg discomfort when one veteran swung a golf club from an assisted standing position.
“We want to protect these people and make them successful,” Kenrick said.
These low-tech solutions are simple, cheap and effective, making them ideal for on-site and one-off situations. But there is interest in innovating and advancing adaptive sports technology even further.
Engineering students from Johns Hopkins University came to this year’s clinic to meet veterans and gather observational research as a part of their multidisciplinary engineering design class capstone project. Their goal is to identify an adaptive sport need and create a tangible prototype solution.
Alex Tinana, a materials engineering senior; Kyungmo Choi, a mechanical engineering senior; Isabella Allen, a mechanical engineering junior; and Amy Liu, a biomedical engineering senior, spent three days talking with veterans, therapists and doctors to learn about current solutions and potential areas for improvement.
They chose to pursue this project, pitched to the school by DAV Voluntary Services Director John Kleindienst, from among several options because of personal connections they each have to the military and to people with disabilities.
Allen and Tinana were inspired by family members who served. Choi was in the South Korean army before going to college and sees this as a way to continue to serve a community he has a lot of respect for. Liu and her family have experience as caregivers for her brother who uses a wheelchair, and she wants to help people in similar situations.
“Ultimately, we’re trying to help these people along their journey to not just recovery but achieving functional independence,” Tinana said.
The group members plan to come to the winter sports clinic in March to demonstrate and test a working prototype of what they develop.
Creating community is another aspect to the golf clinic and other adaptive sports clinics that goes beyond technology and individual functional independence. Hall, whose life changed after his first clinic, now shares the skills and confidence he’s gained with other paralyzed veterans as a volunteer mentor at the Augusta medical center.
Veterans come to him for advice and insight on how he’s adapted to using a wheelchair and the ways he copes with the physical and mental challenges that come with disability.
“That’s the most rewarding thing to me out of all this, honestly,” Hall said, “is getting other people out of their heads and out here, because I know what it did for me.”
2024 DAV Freedom Award
In 2003, Army veteran Dustin Tuller was deployed in Iraq when he was shot more than 200 times in his legs by enemy machine gun fire. Doctors had to amputate his legs to save his life.
To help cope with the physical and psychological effects of his injury, he took up competing in marathons using a hand cycle. He never thought he’d pick up a 9-iron.
“I always thought golf was a slow-paced sport,” he said. “It didn’t seem that interesting to watch it [or] to learn about it.”
Attending the National Disabled Veterans Golf Clinic and discovering the challenge and skill the sport demands changed that assumption.
“The golf clinic has been exceptional,” said Tuller, a DAV life member with Chapter 125 in Pensacola, Florida. “You get to learn a new sport you’ve never touched. You get to have camaraderie that you might be looking for or need.”
Because he was the participant who best embodied the spirit of the golf clinic, Tuller was named its 2024 DAV Freedom Award recipient.
“Dustin is so deserving of this award,” said DAV National Commander Daniel Contreras. “He’s got an infectious personality. Despite all he’s been through, he always has a smile on his face and is making those around him laugh.”
You can watch more about Dustin’s story at veteransgolfclinic.org.