Supremes' regrettable ruling against PGA came at Congress' behest.(The Gazette)

Editorial published in the Colorado Springs, Colo., Gazette May 31, 2001

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The good news in this week's U.S. Supreme Court ruling letting disabled golfer Casey Martin ride a golf cart in competition on the PGA Tour is that the judiciary, for a change, didn't legislate new rights from the bench.

After all, Congress already did that a decade ago when it enacted the Pandora's Box known as the Americans with Disabilities Act. All that the nation's highest court did by way of its 7-2 ruling Tuesday was interpret the ADA as Congress had written it. And then, the court did as that law required and rewrote the rules of golf.

Which, in a roundabout sort of way, vindicates those of us who had profound misgivings about the ADA from the outset. The outcome of the much-publicized Martin saga is so preposterous _ to think nine jurists, some of whom may never have held a golf club, acted as the final arbiters about what constitutes a "reasonable modification" of a 700-year-old game _ as to underscore the ADA's potentially boundless outer limits.

And that, in turn, serves to remind the American public how ridiculously far the public-policy pendulum has swung in the name of accommodating the disabled and, more generally, toward the end of ensuring virtually no one can face "discrimination" of any sort.

We're all too familiar by now with the popular line about how Martin, who suffers from a circulatory disorder that prevents him from walking far, wasn't asking for sweeping changes in golfing, just an opportunity to play the game. And how the PGA is being inflexible in requiring all players to walk the course, no exceptions.