Ethics CasesSport

Cases · PGA Tour · 1997–2021

PGA Tour v. Martin: A Golf Cart and the Rules of the Game

Casey Martin, a talented golfer from Oregon, had Klippel-Trénaunay syndrome, a circulatory disorder that made walking a golf course painful and dangerous. The PGA Tour required players to walk in its top events and the final stage of its qualifying tournament. Martin sued under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), seeking to use a cart. Lower courts ruled for him, finding that walking was not essential to the game and that Martin suffered more fatigue riding than others did walking. In May 2001, the Supreme Court agreed, 7–2, holding that the Tour's events were public accommodations and that allowing Martin a cart would not fundamentally alter the competition. Justice Antonin Scalia dissented, arguing that the rules of a game are "entirely arbitrary" and should not be judged by courts. Martin played on the PGA Tour, later became a college coach, and had his leg amputated in 2021. The case raises questions about accommodation and the essence of competition.

By Tanner Simkins, editor

Timeline

  1. The PGA Tour bars carts in the final stage of its qualifying tournament; Martin's request for a cart is refused and he sues under the ADA.
  2. A federal court orders the Tour to let Martin use a cart; he finishes tied for 23rd at the U.S. Open.
  3. The Ninth Circuit affirms; Martin plays a season on the PGA Tour.
  4. The Supreme Court hears argument.
  5. The Court rules 7–2 for Martin.
  6. Martin becomes men's golf coach at the University of Oregon.
  7. Martin's right leg is amputated.

The ethical issues

  • Reasonable accommodation vs. fundamental alteration.
  • Who defines the essence of a sport: governing bodies or courts.
  • Fairness: whether an accommodation gives an advantage.
  • Individualized assessment vs. uniform rules.
  • Disability rights in elite competition.

Stakeholders

StakeholderInterests & obligations
Casey MartinThe opportunity to compete.
Athletes with disabilitiesAccess to competition.
PGA TourAuthority over its rules.
Other golfersEqual conditions.
Sports governing bodiesImplications for their rules.
FansThe character of the game.

The case

Casey Martin was born with Klippel-Trénaunay syndrome, a degenerative circulatory disorder affecting his right leg.[4] The disorder prevented him from walking golf courses.[2] He was a member of Stanford’s 1994 NCAA championship team, where he was briefly a teammate of Tiger Woods, and turned professional in 1995.[4]

Background

Martin was born in Eugene, Oregon.[4] His professional results came on the developmental tour then known as the Nike Tour. In 1998 he won the Lakeland Classic in a playoff, which kept him on that tour and gave him a five-year exemption from the first stage of qualifying school.[4] By finishing 14th on the Nike Tour money list in 1999, he earned a PGA Tour card for 2000.[4] At that year’s qualifying finals he finished tied for 37th, just outside the top 35 and ties who kept their cards.[4]

The qualifying tournament was open to the public. Anyone could enter by submitting two letters of recommendation and paying a $3,000 fee, which covered greens fees and the carts allowed in the early stages.[2] The hard card’s walking rule also had exceptions. It did not apply in “open” qualifying events for individual tournaments or on the Tour’s senior tour.[2]

The rules and governance

The Tour argued that its play areas were not public accommodations and that competing golfers were not “clients or customers” but providers of the entertainment it sold, so any claim belonged under the ADA’s employment title instead.[2] Magistrate Judge Thomas Coffin rejected the first point, writing that an operator could not create private enclaves within a facility and “relegate the ADA to hop-scotch areas.”[1] The Supreme Court held that golfers who pay $3,000 to compete in qualifying school could fairly be treated as customers in any event.[2]

The Court described two ways a modification could “fundamentally alter” a competition. It could change an essential aspect of the game, such as the size of the hole, even if applied to everyone. Or it could give a disabled player an advantage over others.[2] It found neither. It held that the essence of golf has always been shot-making, and that the ADA requires an individualized look at the person asking for an accommodation, which the Tour had refused to do.[2] The vote was 7–2. Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justices O’Connor, Kennedy, Souter, Ginsburg and Breyer joined Stevens.[2]

The rule

Professional golf tournaments followed the Rules of Golf, which did not prohibit carts, plus the PGA Tour’s own “hard card,” which required players to walk in tour events. Carts were allowed in the first two stages of the Tour’s qualifying tournament but had been barred in the third stage since 1997.[2] When Martin entered the qualifying tournament, he asked, with detailed medical records, to use a cart. The Tour refused.[2] The hard card read: “Players shall walk at all times during a stipulated round unless permitted to ride by the PGA TOUR Rules Committee.”[5]

The lower courts

Martin sued under Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act, which requires public accommodations to make reasonable modifications for people with disabilities unless the change would “fundamentally alter” what is offered.[2] The statute treats as discrimination “a failure to make reasonable modifications in policies, practices, or procedures” when they are needed to give people with disabilities access, “unless the entity can demonstrate that making such modifications would fundamentally alter the nature” of what it offers.[6] At trial the Tour did not dispute that Martin had a covered disability, or that it prevented him from walking a round. Its case was that walking was a substantive rule of competition that could not be waived for anyone.[5] Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus and Ken Venturi testified that fatigue could decide tournaments. But, as the Court later noted, they offered no opinion on whether a cart would give Martin in particular an advantage.[5] The trial court found that the walking rule was meant to introduce fatigue but that the fatigue from walking a course was not significant. It found that even with a cart, Martin endured more fatigue than other golfers did walking. It ordered the Tour to let him use a cart.[2] The trial judge credited a physiologist who estimated that walking a five-mile course burned about 500 calories, “nutritionally … less than a Big Mac.”[5] The judge also wrote that Martin was “in significant pain when he walks.” With each step, he was “at risk of fracturing his tibia and hemorrhaging,” and “he would gladly trade the cart for a good leg.”[5] With a cart, he won a developmental tour event and finished tied for 23rd at the 1998 U.S. Open.[4] The Ninth Circuit affirmed.[2] It said that “[a]ll that the cart does is permit Martin access to a type of competition in which he otherwise could not engage because of his disability.”[5] A day later the Seventh Circuit reached the opposite result in a suit against the U.S. Golf Association. That suit was brought by a disabled amateur golfer who had tried to qualify for the U.S. Open, and the court held that removing the walking rule would take stamina out of what the competition tested.[5] The split set up Supreme Court review.

The Supreme Court

On May 29, 2001, the Supreme Court ruled 7–2 for Martin. Justice John Paul Stevens wrote that the Tour’s golf courses were places of public accommodation under the ADA, and that Martin, as a competitor, was entitled to its protection.[1][2] The Court found that walking was not an essential part of golf and that allowing Martin a cart would not fundamentally alter the Tour’s events.[2] Stevens noted that the Tour itself allowed carts on its senior tour, in the first two stages of qualifying school and, until 1997, in the third stage too.[5] He wrote that the walking rule was “at best peripheral” to the Tour’s events. He described Martin as someone who “easily endures greater fatigue even with a cart than his able-bodied competitors do by walking,” so the rule’s purpose was “not compromised in the slightest.”[5] He dismissed the Tour’s warning about a flood of requests. In the three years since Martin’s request, no one else had sued the Tour, and only two other golfers had sued the USGA.[5]

Justice Antonin Scalia, joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, dissented. He wrote that game rules “are (as in all games) entirely arbitrary,” and that no one, “not even the Supreme Court,” could declare one of them nonessential if the rulemaker deemed it otherwise. He ended by quoting Kurt Vonnegut’s story “Harrison Bergeron”: “everybody was finally equal.”[3]

Aftermath

Martin played a season on the PGA Tour in 2000 but did not keep his card. He qualified for the 2012 U.S. Open and became the University of Oregon’s men’s golf coach in 2006; Oregon won the national title in 2016.[4] In 2021, his right leg was amputated.[1][4]

Coaching and later play

Martin was named Oregon’s head coach in May 2006, after serving as a volunteer assistant that season.[4] He qualified for the 2012 U.S. Open by winning a sectional qualifier at Emerald Valley Golf Club.[4]

The core dilemma

The Tour said walking was part of the test of championship golf, and that it, not courts, should define its game. Martin said the rule excluded him because of his disability without serving any real purpose. When should rules bend for an athlete with a disability?

Competing values

  • Inclusion vs. uniform rules: individual access against identical conditions.
  • Self-governance vs. legal oversight: sport’s autonomy against civil rights law.
  • Fairness vs. accommodation: ensuring an accommodation does not give an advantage.
  • Essence of the game vs. tradition: what a competition really tests.

Strongest arguments

For Martin: the walking rule was not essential to the skill of golf, and Martin endured more fatigue even with a cart. Excluding him served no real purpose.

For the Tour: governing bodies should define their sports. Individualized exceptions invite litigation and uncertainty about what competitions test.

Applying the frameworks

Justice

A justice lens asks whether a uniform rule can still treat people unequally when it ignores relevant differences. The Court’s individualized inquiry reflects a view of fairness as giving each competitor access to the same core contest, here shot-making, rather than identical conditions.

Rights

A rights lens frames Martin’s claim as a civil right to equal access to a public competition. It asks how far that right should reach into the rules of elite sport, and who decides what is essential to a game.

Kantian (duty)

A Kantian lens tests the Tour’s rule and the Court’s ruling against universal principles. Could the Tour will that every rule be applied with no exceptions for disability? Scalia’s dissent raises the counter-concern that courts should not rewrite rules that rulemakers freely chose.

Walk it through: the Simple Decision Model

  1. Spot the issue. You are a tour official in 1997 when a qualifier with a documented circulatory disorder asks to use a cart in the final stage of qualifying school. The stakeholders include the golfer, other competitors, the tour, sponsors and future athletes with disabilities. The codes in play are the Rules of Golf, the tour’s hard card and the ADA.
  2. Gather facts. What is the purpose of the walking rule? What do the golfer’s medical records show? Where do carts already appear in your own events?
  3. Test options. Options: (a) refuse, applying the rule to everyone; (b) grant the cart after an individualized review; (c) grant it and set a clear process for future requests. Weigh uniformity against equal access.
  4. Check codes and law. Would the decision survive a legal challenge under the ADA? Would you accept it if you were the golfer?
  5. Decide and document. Record your reasoning and the evidence considered.
  6. Communicate and follow up. Communicate the decision and the review process, and monitor whether accommodations affect competition.

What’s settled and what’s contested

  • Settled: the ADA applies to professional golf tours; Martin’s right to a cart.
  • Contested: how far courts should assess what is essential to a sport.

Why this case matters

PGA Tour v. Martin remains a leading case on disability and sport. It frames how leagues, schools and courts consider accommodation requests.

Key terms

Reasonable accommodation
Adjusting conditions so people can take part, without lowering the standard. Fairness isn’t sameness.
Equalizer vs. enhancer
Whether a technology or adaptation restores a level field (adaptation) or gives an advantage beyond it (augmentation).
Rules vs. spirit of the game
Rules are the written minimum; the spirit is the fairness and respect the rules exist to protect. Rules set the floor; spirit sets the ceiling.
Distributive justice
Fairness in how scarce opportunities, resources, benefits and burdens are shared.

Definitions from the Ethics Cases glossary.

Discussion questions

  1. The Court found that walking was not essential to golf. Who should decide what is essential to a sport?
  2. Scalia argued that game rules are arbitrary and courts should not second-guess them. Is that persuasive?
  3. Should accommodations be assessed individually, as the Court required, or by general rules?
  4. How should sports decide whether an accommodation gives an unfair advantage?
  5. Would the case be decided differently in a sport where fatigue is clearly central?

Sources

  1. PGA Tour, Inc. v. Martin — Wikipedia
  2. PGA Tour, Inc. v. Martin (00-24), syllabus — Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School
  3. PGA Tour, Inc. v. Martin (00-24), Scalia, J., dissenting — Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School
  4. Casey Martin — Wikipedia
  5. PGA Tour, Inc. v. Martin, 532 U.S. 661 (2001), opinion of the Court (Stevens, J.) — Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School
  6. 42 U.S.C. § 12182, Prohibition of discrimination by public accommodations — Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School