What does Walters do after the six-hour round? He heads to the putting green to work on his short game.
PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. — Few people on this planet have hit more golf shots than Jupiter resident Dennis Walters, certainly not from a wheelchair.
Walters estimates he has hit more than 7 million shots during the last 47 years since he became paralyzed after a golf cart accident. More than 99 percent of those swings came during trick-shot shows that Walters started doing after his dream of becoming a professional golfer was shattered.
On Monday, it was time to deal with the other 1 percent – playing tournament golf. The World Golf Hall of Famer shot a 12-over 83 during the first round of the USDGA Championship at PGA Golf Club, and he tried to keep it in perspective.
“I’m 74 and I’ve been sitting in a wheelchair for 50 years, and I shot 83,” Walters said. “There’s a lot of dead people who would love to be in my shoes and shoot 83.
“I’m not complaining about a darn thing.”
Of course, Walters wishes his score would have been lower. So does every other golfer.
But the 83 he shot on the Ryder Course was good enough to leave him tied for second, two shots behind Justin Miller in the Seated Division. Walters is the defending champion here and won the Seated Division title in the inaugural U.S. Adaptive Open in 2022.
“I really did hit some good shots, but not with the scoring shots,” Walters said. “I almost holed a bunker shot, but I missed a 1-foot putt. I didn’t drive it as good, and that’s usually the best part of my game.”
So what does Walters do after the six-hour round? He heads to the putting green to work on his short game.
“He played bad today, and he’s out here grinding like Bernhard Langer would be,” said Russ Holden, who used to caddie for Langer and serves as Walters’ assistant on the course. “His drive never stops. And what’s amazing is he hasn’t played ‘regular golf’ in 47 years. He epitomizes what a World Golf Hall of Famer should be.”
Each of the 90 players competing in the USGDA Championship has overcome plenty to tee it up this week at PGA Golf Club. Watching golfers swing with one arm, one leg, in a wheelchair or with neurological issues is a sight to behold.
Even if most wish they were elsewhere.
“This is one golf tournament you don’t want to be eligible for,” Walters said. “But if you are, and you’re here, that’s a heckuva thing.”
Walters said people thought he was crazy when he started doing his trick-shot shows across the country. He did more than 150 a year in his prime, and he will do more than 50 this year.
He never expected to someday be playing in competition against other disabled golfers. The USDGA, run by the U.S. Disabled Golf Association and Presented by the PGA of America, is in its sixth year; the USGA-run U.S. Disabled Open will hold its third event this summer.
“I’m so grateful for the PGA of America and the U.S. Disabled Golf Association for giving us this opportunity,” Walters said. “It’s not so much for me than for the younger ones. It’s great they have it and there’s an avenue open for competitive golf.”
Chris Biggins of Birmingham, Ala., leads the men’s overall division after shooting an even-par 71 to give him a two-shot advantage over defending champion Chad Pfeifer, 2022 champion Eli Villanueva and Albert Bowker. Five-time PGA Tour champion Ken Green (74) of West Palm Beach is tied for fifth with Kenny Bontz.
“I have to be more aggressive with my irons,” said Green, who had four bogeys and one birdie. “It’s hard to make birdies when you’re not hitting your irons close.”
Reigning U.S. Adaptive Open champion Ryanne Jackson of Seminole (80) leads the women’s division by a shot over Natasha Stasiuk. Defending champion Bailey Bish is tied for third with Amanda Cunha.
Villanueva is tied for the Senior Division lead with George Willoughby (73) of Danville, Va. The 54-hole event runs through Wednesday.
The USDGA Championship is run by the U.S. Disabled Golf Association and Presented by the PGA of America.
The U.S. Adaptive Open has at least five male players and two females in each impairment category.
VILLAGE OF PINEHURST, North Carolina – Dennis Walters likes to lay out his clothes before he goes to bed. In the morning, he nudges Gussie, short for Augusta, and playfully says, “Hey, service dog, I need some service. Can I have my shoes?”
Gussie pops up and gets a shoe. Walters then playfully follows with, “They come in pairs.”
Gussie goes back for the other shoe.
This back-and-forth goes on every day. Name a hole at Augusta National, and Gussie will bark the par. Say No. 12, for example, and she’ll bark three times. Walters even taught Gussie, a rescue dog found in a bag abandoned on the side of the road outside San Juan, Puerto Rico, how to hit a golf ball. Walters is passionate about rescue dogs and calls Gussie a “not-sure” breed. As in, who knows.
“We’re never separated,” said Walters, “and we’re a good team.”
When the U.S. Golf Association announced the inaugural U.S. Adaptive Open, Walters called to ask if his dog could be in the cart with him during the championship. Walters said he wouldn’t have played without Gussie, who picks up whatever Walters can’t reach.
Because he’s a service dog, the USGA gave Gussie the green light, and Walters went to work learning how to play golf again.
“I’d say this is one of the coolest, greatest things ever,” said Walters of the USGA’s 15th championship. “This is way more than a golf tournament. Because I think what’s going to happen this week has the ability to change the lives of a lot of people.
“And by that I mean, if you’re sitting in a wheelchair, I think one of the last things you’d be able to think you could do is play golf. But if all of these hundreds of thousands or millions of people with disabilities see this, I think the USGA has a golden opportunity to show others what’s possible. It has the power to be way more effective than any golf tournament that I can think of. There’s a real purpose here.”
The U.S. Adaptive Open will be staged July 18-20 at Pinehurst No. 6. The 96-player field has at least five male players and two females in each impairment category: arm impairment, leg impairment, multiple limb amputee, vision impairment, intellectual impairment, neurological impairment, seated players and short stature. Four separate yardages will be used spanning from 4,700 to 6,500 yards.
“It feels incredible,” said Chris Biggins, a 30-year-old PGA professional who was born with cerebral palsy and plays off a +2.8 handicap.
“You had all these expectations coming in, and then you come in and you see the signs, the setup, all the players here, and it just makes it that much more real. It’s a big-time championship, the biggest one that I’ve played in ever, and I can’t wait to get going on Monday.”
Donna Caponi, Jane Stephenson, Dennis Walters and Jack Nicklaus attend the 2019 World Golf Hall Of Fame Induction Ceremony in Carmel-By-The-Sea, California. (Photo: Kimberly White/Getty Images)
Walters, 72, went to North Texas State on a golf scholarship and was preparing for a second trip to PGA Tour Q-School in 1974 when the brakes failed on a three-wheel cart he was riding back home in Neptune, New Jersey. He was thrown from the cart and suffered spinal cord damage so severe it left him paralyzed from the waist down.
During the last month of rehab, Walters went home on the weekends and remembers laying on the couch with his head in his father’s lap as they watched the Bing Crosby National Pro-Am. Many of his friends were in the field, Tom Kite, Ben Crenshaw, Andy North, Bruce Lietzke.
“I was crying my eyes out,” said Walters, who was emotional Sunday recounting the story.
“My dad says, ‘Come on champ, let’s go hit some golf balls.’ I said ‘How do you reckon I’m going to do that?’ He said ‘out of that blanking wheelchair.’ ”
So they went down the street to a small clubhouse with a net in the dead of winter in New Jersey and with a pillow, a wide strap and rope, Walters’ father got him hitting balls again. By the third weekend, he’d moved to out to the front yard.
When he striped his favorite Byron Nelson 3-wood 130 yards down the middle of the street, Walters had an epiphany: “At that very moment I realized that when I hit the ball in the middle of the face, it still felt good.”
In time, the Dennis Walters Golf Show was born, and over the past 45 years, Walters has given more than 3,000 clinics the world over, with a beloved dog by his side. Gussie is his fifth dog, and Walters believes she might turn out to be the most talented.
Walters’ inspiring work has led to golf’s highest honors, including a 2019 induction into The World Golf Hall of Fame. He’s also won The Ben Hogan Award, USGA’s Bob Jones Award and PGA of America’s Distinguished Service Award. Last year a documentary was made about his life that an be found on Peacock.
But for all the millions of balls he’s hit, all the masterful tricks that have delighted audiences the world over, it had been decades since Walters had played 18 holes. Nearly 50 years since he’d competed in a tournament.
“This is like being in a foreign land as far as I’m concerned,” said Walters. “It’s like trying to climb Mount Everest.”
Dennis Walters practices for the 2022 U.S. Adaptive Open at Pinehurst No. 6 in Pinehurst, North Carolina. (Photo: Jeff Haynes/USGA)
Walters started with one-foot putts and found that he couldn’t make them all.
“That’s how bad it was,” he said. “Chipping, dumping them in the bunker, blading them across the street. It was ugly. It was ugly for a while. Finally, one day after about I think six weeks, I said, you know what, I might as well go try.”
So after six weeks, he decided to give nine holes a try and discovered that hitting the ball from the dirt wasn’t as difficult as he’d imagined.
The last shot Walters hit in a competitive round more than four decades ago was a 25-foot uphill bunker shot from a buried lie. He took half the sand out of the bunker and knocked it in tight.
Walters, who had the same barstool seat he’s been using for 45 years attached to a SoloRider cart, was afraid to drive his cart into bunkers when he first started playing. At two warm-up events, he’d take the penalty stroke each time to avoid having to drive in.
But during a recent round at Chicago Golf Club, the club president encouraged him to drive the cart into a bunker. Walters stunned himself when he hit it to 6 feet.
“So then I went up there and made the putt,” said Walters. “It was like my first sandy in 48 years. Then I had my dog take the ball out of the cup.”
Gussie has her own bed on the cart, along with a miniature silver umbrella to help beat the heat. On the back of the cart is a red bumper sticker that reads, “My mutt is smarter than your honor student.”
Dennis Walters and his dog Gussie meet with the media ahead of the U.S. Adaptive Open. (Golfweek photo)
The emotions of the week loom large for many in the field. Playing in a national championship again was never a dream. Walters thought getting out of bed all those years ago would take a miracle.
In 1971, he tied for 11th at the U.S. Amateur and missed going to the Masters by two shots. He’s still mad about that, though he has conducted a clinic on the first tee at Augusta National, played all the par 3s and fished in Ike’s Pond.
In his three-act show, Walters talks about the importance of dreams. When the Adaptive Open was announced, Walters himself got a new dream. While many of his friends are cutting back or quitting the game, Walters is just getting started.
World Golf Hall of Fame member Dennis Walters gave a tour of the SoloRider cart he’ll be using at the U.S. Adaptive Open. pic.twitter.com/oU1Stgrqvx
After traveling the world and seeing only the practice range and first tee of so many famous courses, Walters is expanding his horizons, playing Oakmont, Shore Acres, Inverness and Chicago Golf Club in just the last few weeks.
His new bucket list includes the two courses he grew up on: Jumping Brook in Neptune and Hollywood Golf Club in Ocean Township, New Jersey, where he grew up picking the range by hand and dreaming of a career in golf.
“I’m laying in a hospital bed 48 years ago, you’re going to tell me you’ll travel the world and this journey will take you from this hospital bed to the World Golf Hall of Fame,” said Walters. “You can’t make that up. … There’s not a number high enough to calculate the odds on that.”
There are 95 other players in the field who feel some version of that awe and gratitude.
And one lucky dog.
How to watch
While there will be no full television coverage of the event, fans can watch near real-time highlights and feature stories during Golf Today (noon-2 p.m. ET) and Golf Central (4-5 p.m. ET) on Golf Channel all three days (July 18-20). The trophy ceremony will be shown July 20 on Golf Central.
From the inspirational story of Dennis Walters to Ben Hogan, golfers have shown the power of the human spirit to prevail.
Dennis Walters has a message for all the doubters who say Tiger Woods is finished after suffering multiple injuries to his legs and shattering his ankle in a single-vehicle collision on Tuesday in Los Angeles.
“I’m betting on Tiger,” said Walters, who was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2019. “He’s proven he can overcome almost anything.”
More than 45 years ago, on July 21, 1974, Walters, an aspiring professional golf, was driving a cart down a gravel path. He was riding a golf cart down a steep hill when the brakes failed and he was thrown from the cart, severing his spine. He couldn’t feel his legs when he woke up in a hospital bed and knew his dream of playing on the PGA Tour was over. He has been paralyzed from the waist down since that day.
“The one thing I have learned is not to really believe anything doctors predict,” Walters said. “Medicine is not an exact science. When you combine the human will and the human spirit to overcome things, that is a very powerful force and I believe if it is possible, Tiger can do it. I’d never count him out. His mental capacity far exceeds anyone I’ve ever seen. I think that’s his strongest weapon once he gets to the point that he is able to physically rehab. If he wants to do it, I’d say Tiger Woods will be OK.”
A tow truck recovers the vehicle driven by Tiger Woods in Rancho Palos Verdes, California, on February 23, 2021, after a rollover accident. (Photo: Frederic J. Brown/ AFP via Getty Images)
Walters predicted that the healing process the next few months will be difficult physically, but the bar will be set even higher mentally. When Woods spoke on TV on Sunday, he was nearing the point where he thought his surgically-repaired back might allow him to begin preparing for a return in time to play the Masters in April. He must start over again. Walters knows the feeling. Six months after his accident, Walters wasn’t making any progress so he confronted his doctor.
“He said, ‘You’re never going to walk again.’ That made me cry,” Walters recalled. “I said, ‘How about playing golf? He said, ‘Forget it.’ I said two words to him and they weren’t happy birthday!”
Essex County Golf Club in West Orange, New Jersey, where Walters once had qualified for the U.S. Amateur, was across a road from his rehab center. Walters told his doctor that he was going to return some day and hit golf balls from the parking lot on to the course.
“I came back a year and a half later and did that. My doctor said, ‘I’m never telling anyone they can’t do anything,’ ” Walters said. “It’s folly to predict what a human being can do. That’s my reasoning for saying, let things progress and see what happens. I’m betting on Tiger Woods. To what degree? I don’t know, but if Tiger Woods is given a chance, he might be able to give us more thrills like he has all these years.”
Walters has toured the country performing more than 3,000 golf exhibitions, and was Woods’ opening act when he did junior clinics early in his career. It was a letter in the mail from golf great Ben Hogan, who had suffered his own life-threatening injuries after being hit by a bus head on in 1949 and recovering to win six majors, and his support that provided a psychological lift for Walters.
Count former PGA Championship winner and NBC golf commentator Paul Azinger among those who agree that Tiger isn’t done yet.
“You can’t forget that nobody fights back harder than Tiger,” Azinger said.
“I will never stop believing that he won’t make a Ben Hogan recovery until he doesn’t,” Woods’ former instructor Hank Haney tweeted.
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Woods has won a major on one leg, endured five back surgeries and come back time and time again, but this is different.
“This is his greatest challenge,” former U.S. Open champion and ESPN golf analyst Curtis Strange said. “This is something he can’t control. He’s got a beat-up body in that hospital and it’s going to take time to heal. Only then can he think about golf. But regardless, this isn’t the end of Tiger. He still has so much to offer the game.”
Comebacks have defined Woods’ career. This one may require him to re-learn how to walk and there’s no telling yet what the crash has done to his balky back. But Strange remains hopeful, too.
“Look at Alex Smith,” he said, referring to the Washington Football Team quarterback who recovered from a gruesome injury to his leg that was believed to be career-ending. “Did it seem possible he could play football last year? But he did. What seems impossible can happen.”
