Casey Martin, a former PGA Tour golfer and the current head men’s golf coach at the University of Oregon, has successfully undergone surgery to amputate his right leg after a fractured tibia suffered in 2019 failed to heal due to a birth defect that he has lived with. According to a report by Max Adler of Golf Digest, Martin underwent his amputation surgery on Friday and is currently recovering at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.
Martin’s spent one season as a full participant on the PGA Tour in 2000, which came after he successfully sued the PGA for the right to use a golf cart due to his condition. Martin successfully argued his case under the Americans with Disabilities Act, which made it all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court and resulted in a 7-2 vote in his favor. Martin had driven a golf cart in order to prevent the very sort of accidental step that he suffered in 2019 and has since resulted in the loss of his leg.
Martin, a member of Oregon’s 1994 NCAA Championship golf team who played sporadically in PGA Tour events between 1998 and 2012, was born with Klippel-Trenaunay syndrome, a rare congenital condition in which blood vessels and/or lymph vessels fail to form properly. The condition affected Martin’s ability to put weight on his right leg, which led to him breaking his right tibia in 2019 when he stepped off the curb outside his home wrong while retrieving trash bins.
Martin spent two years in a cast and received various treatments on his leg, but it never healed. Doctors were able to save much of Martin’s bone above the knee, which will give him the opportunity to be receive an effective prosthetic.
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Source : cbssports
