Tag: Chad Pfeifer

Four 2023 U.S. Adaptive Open competitors team up to make a difference with Moving Foreward foundation

“No golf instructors know how to really navigate what anybody out here is dealing with.”

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VILLAGE OF PINEHURST, N.C. — “I don’t want to slow anyone down.”

“I don’t have the right equipment.”

“We don’t have anybody to teach us.”

Adam Benza has heard those responses time and time again as reasons why more people from the disabled community haven’t tried to play golf. There are clinics all over the country for adaptive golfers, but a lot are run by instructors who aren’t familiar with the community they’re teaching.

That’s why nearly ten years ago Benza enlisted the help of fellow 2023 U.S. Adaptive Open competitors Kenny Bontz, Chad Pfeifer and Kellie Valentine to create Moving Foreward, a foundation that aims to get more disabled people involved in the game through clinics and by providing equipment for those in need.

‘I was like, ‘Hey, we’re the best of every category. We’re some of the best players in United States,’” said Benza, 41, who lost his leg to Ewing’s sarcoma at 9 years old. “Let’s do this, go and teach golf professionals to make it more available so they have more knowledge on how our prosthetics work, how we swing, Kellie has one arm, they’re both (above knee amputees) and I’m a (below knee amputee).”

PHOTOS: 2023 U.S. Adaptive Open

“No golf instructors know how to really navigate what anybody out here is dealing with,” added Benza, who studied professional golf management at Penn State. “So that was kind of our main goal, to make it more accessible for all of the communities so they could go to a golf professional and know that they know what they’re talking about and how to deal with this us.”

“Adam does a lot of the day-to-day stuff,” said Pfeifer. “He does a lot of clinics, he’s helping teach other pros how to teach adaptive people, how to adjust to whatever their disability is, all the different adaptive equipment that’s out there.”

None other than 13-time PGA Tour winner Jordan Spieth, whose parents went to the same high school as Benza, was the foundation’s first donor, but Benza didn’t shy away from his disappointment that more people don’t want to donate.

“We would like to do more clinics, more for awareness, golf tournaments raising money for people to go to events like this, but people don’t understand that it’s all coming out of our own pockets,” he explained. “To be able to go to people and say, ‘You’ve never played an adaptive event, we’re gonna pay for you to go out there, we’ll get used clubs,’ stuff like that, that’s our main goal, just to get more and more people out there.”

“That’s what we want to do, it’s just when push comes to shove and you go to ask somebody they’re like, ‘We already have our budget planned out for this year. We’ll talk to you next year.’”

But next year doesn’t always come.

“We’re always looking for money, that drives a lot, but that money goes towards great things like getting these players out on the golf course and golf clubs in their hands,” added Pfeifer. “Any kind of support is always helpful. Even if you know somebody who might have a disability, let them know about us and let them know about adaptive golf. We’d love to see him out here, no matter what their injury is.”

Find out more information on Moving Foreward here.

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U.S. military veterans question proposed partnership between the PGA Tour, Saudi Arabia

While suits on the Hill spoke about growing the game, 96 players and 430 volunteers were actively doing so.

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No three words are more overused in golf than “grow the game.”

While the intended outcome is admirable, it’s not always honest. The phrase has been co-opted by various organizations and leagues within the game, especially those involved in the Greg Norman-led and Saudi Arabia-backed LIV Golf. At the same time the future of the game was being discussed in a U.S. Senate hearing on the proposed deal between the PGA Tour and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, 96 players and 430 volunteers were actually growing the game instead of speaking about doing so.

The 2023 U.S. Adaptive Open at Pinehurst No. 6 is the second playing of the USGA’s newest championship which puts disabled golfers in the spotlight and provides them the opportunity to showcase their talent in a national open they deserve. After the second round, former U.S. military veterans who were wounded in service of their country questioned whether or not the proposed deal with the Kingdom is the best way to, as they often say, grow the game.

“It’s one of those things, they’re trying to grow the game, and I don’t know if that’s the right way to go about it,” said Chad Pfeifer, who is competing in the leg impairment category after he lost his left leg in 2007 while serving for the U.S. Army in Iraq. “I feel like there’s other, better ways to grow the game of golf.”

Such as, for example, creating a foundation with other disabled golfers that aims to get more disabled people and adults involved in the game through clinics or by providing equipment for those in need. That’s exactly what Adam Benza, Kenny Bontz, Kellie Valentine and Pfeifer did with their foundation, Moving Foreward.

“Look here this week,” said Pfeifer. “Hopefully a lot of people see this and they’re inspired and maybe pick up the game of golf. There’s just a lot of other ways you can grow the game of golf.”

Due to Saudi Arabia’s involvement in the attacks on 9/11 to the Kingdom’s wide-ranging human rights abuses – which include politically motivated killings, torture, forced disappearances and inhumane treatment of prisoners – LIV Golf had long been criticized as another way for Saudi Arabia to sportswash its reputation through the investment of hundreds of millions of dollars.

At first, Larry Celano wasn’t too bothered by LIV Golf or the Tour’s decision to sign a framework agreement with the PIF, “because it’s not my war.” The Arizona native was wounded during the invasion of Panama on Dec. 22, 1989, as a member of the U.S. Army in the 82nd Airborne Division and sustained an L1-L2 spinal cord injury due to gunshot wounds. He retired in June of 1990 and was awarded the Purple Heart. He also started the Seated Golfers Association, of which he serves as the president.

“What (Saudi Arabia) did, the money’s not good money,” said Celano, who also noted the lengths to which corporate America has accepted Saudi investment. “I don’t want the money now because my friend opened my eyes to realize how they treat people.”

Maybe it’s time for those claiming to grow the game to listen to the people who are actively doing it.

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Army veteran and amputee Chad Pfeifer gives everyone reason to cheer at TOC

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. – “Cart coming!” John Bell worked to help part the crowd on Saturday so that his buddy, Chad Pfeifer, could get to his next shot. Pfeifer gets a lift at the Diamond Resorts Tournament of Champions because he’s competing on a …

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. – “Cart coming!”

John Bell worked to help part the crowd on Saturday so that his buddy, Chad Pfeifer, could get to his next shot. Pfeifer gets a lift at the Diamond Resorts Tournament of Champions because he’s competing on a prosthetic leg. Bell actually has a similar prosthetic. He said the knee runs $150,000. The foot about $5,000. The socket somewhere between $10,000-$15,000. There’s a computer inside the leg and its “stumble recovery” features now keeps him from falling down several times a week.

Bell knows the date he last fell down: June 16, 2016.

Pfeifer’s leg got blown off by an IED explosion in 2007 while he was serving as an infantry paratrooper in Iraq. His caddie, Adam Benza, lost his leg at age 9 after being diagnosed with Ewing’s sarcoma. Bell got hit by a truck while on a motorcycle at age 30. The horrific accident left him with a crushed skull, broken back, sliced hand and arm and an above-the-knee amputation on his right leg.

Pfeifer entered the third round of the celebrity division in a share of first place. The Army vet has since fallen 10 points behind MLB Hall of Famer John Smoltz, but there isn’t a player in the field with greater perspective than Pfeifer.

A frustrating round won’t kill him.

“Nobody is trying to blow me up or shoot at me,” said Pfeifer, “so life’s pretty good.”

There are enthusiastic autograph-seekers by the scoring area the TOC. They’re after the Hall of Famers in the field, clutching baseballs and 8×10 glossy prints. They’re wearing Verlander jerseys and cracking up at Larry the Cable Guy’s one-liners.

But it’s Pfeifer’s story that’s truly extraordinary. It’s easy to get choked-up with gratitude just watching him.

Behind the first green at Tranquilo Golf Club is the Skybox Salute, a social media initiative that allows fans to thank active and retired military who are stationed around the world and on property during the TOC. They rose to their feet on Saturday when Pfeifer, a father of three boys, passed through.

The game has taken Pfeifer to Dubai and Australian in recent months. Competing at the TOC among celebrities remains a pinch-me dream.

Pfeifer and Benza started a foundation, Moving Foreward, with several other highly-skilled disabled golfers. Benza came up with the foundation’s mission after going through the Penn State’s PGA Golf Management program and noticing that they never specifically addressed teaching those with disabilities.

“There are 180,000 amputees a year,” said Benza, who is also co-executive director of the National Amputee Golf Association.

Jordan Spieth made the first contribution. His parents went to Saucon Valley High, which happens to be Benza’s alma mater.

Pfeifer played baseball in college and had zero interest in golf until a man who was missing both his legs came by his hospital room to lift his spirits. The man’s wife happened to go to college with Pfeifer, and they made plans to get together after he got his prosthetic. Pfeifer reluctantly agreed to a game of golf.

After hitting a few shots on the sweet spot, however, he fell in love. Pfeifer calls golf a life saver, saying the game helped him fight off depression.

He was bullish about it. Even when he had trouble transferring his weight to the left side and onto the prosthetic. It hurt too. The pain largely comes down to how well his prosthetic fits.

“Because I basically post up on my prosthetic and kind of transfer my weight and just kind of rotate the leg, there’s a lot of times where, if the leg doesn’t rotate but my body does, my socket goes all the way up to my hip and my groin area,” said Pfeifer. “So it will just kind of dig into my groin area, and I’ll get cuts and sore spots. So at times it can be very painful, but just kind of going to my military days, just kind of suck it up.”

Early on he had to quit when sweat pooled up in the bottom of his liner and he couldn’t take a step without falling over. Now it’s an easy fix.

Bell and Pfeifer’s prosthetics come up high on their legs, while Benza’s is below the knee. Bell said that below-the-knee amputees use 35 percent more energy than an able-bodied person. Above-the-knee amputees use about 65 percent more.

When he travels, Bell takes a back-up leg with him.

“You don’t drive without a spare tire,” he explained. If something happened to Pfeifer’s leg this week, Bell said they could swap his in and it would be fairly close. The leg’s settings can be adjusted on a smart phone. There can even be a golf mode.

Pfeifer said grown men have some up to him at tournaments to say he’s inspired them to get back in the game. Benza said it’s important that able-bodied kids see what’s possible for those with disabilities.

“It’s like the disabled person getting picked last in dodge ball because you don’t think they can do anything,” said Benza.

Pfeifer shatters that idea with just one swing.