I will now not say that Amy Bockerstette beat me (easily) in our nine-hole golf fit. I’d in no way recommend she changed into more accurate off the tee and into the vegetables or that her placing made mine appear to be I changed into gambling croquet.
I will handiest say that we didn’t maintain the score.
“Is there anything about playing better golf which you’d want to ask me?” I asked Amy as I drove our cart up the ninth fairway at Legendary Run Wednesday. “No,” she stated, guffawing.
“OK, then. Do you have got one piece of advice, one tip for me?”
“Umm. Hit the ball straight,” she stated.
She’s 20 years vintage and is dwelling a second of reputation so captivating and serendipitous, and it has been watched on social media more than 20 million instances. You would possibly have visible it:
At the Waste Management Open in Phoenix in January, the PGA Tour and a group of Phoenix-place businessmen called the Firebirds collaborated with defending champ Gary Woodland, with having Amy walk a hollow with Woodland all through the Tuesday practice spherical.
At least that’s what the concept could be occurring.
“Would you like to hit a shot?” someone requested Amy, once she becomes inside the gallery ropes. Anyone aware of Amy knows that Amy would not hit only a shot. She’d have to finish the hollow.
She becomes certified. Amy had taken lessons for six years; she’d played excessive school golfing. She becomes currently on a golf scholarship at Paradise Valley Community College, the first man or woman born with Down syndrome ever to get a university scholarship in Arizona.
Everyone agreed Amy could play the one hundred twenty-yard par-three 16th with Gary. She wasn’t correctly prepared. She didn’t “were given” this. . Her father Joe found out which hole Amy might be gambling earlier than the spherical. He hid her 6-hybrid, her hole wedge and her putter in Woodland’s bag. Amy didn’t understand she might be playing the 16th until the group reached the tee field.
Joe didn’t supply Amy a sand wedge because he assumed his daughter might either hit her tee shot on the inexperienced or through it. (Her accuracy is incurable. We’ll speak that quickly.) Next aspect you know, Woodland is handing Amy the hybrid. . . And she or he’s hitting into the right bunker.
“The sand becomes very fluffy,” Joe recalled Wednesday. “And the (lip of) the bunker became taller than she turned into. She takes an exercise swing, and I’m saying, Ames, swing more difficult.”
“Dad, leave me on my own,” was Amy’s answer. “I got this.” And she did, in truth, were given that. She blasted out with the distance wedge to 8 toes and made the putt. Instant classic. Massive win for folks with Down syndrome and humanity everywhere.
Joe and Jenny Bockerstette attended Norwood High and got married some days once they every graduated from UC in 1981. They’re on the town touring household, which explains why we all have been at Legendary Run on Wednesday.
The obvious point has been made and remade: Amy is an inspirer, Amy is a motivator. Amy made us sense suitable approximately ourselves. After Woodland won the Open, he credited Amy for her help. “We did this collectively,” Woodland informed her, while each regarded on NBC’s Today display. What’s lost on this – what everyone who advocates for people with disabilities would like you to recognise – is that this:
Amy’s a pleasing individual, yes. But Amy can play. Amy’s got a sport.
Amy has what we hackers never will: A repeatable swing. A swing arc that touches the floor on the follow through at the ideal spot. Every time. It’s like one of those robots that organisations use to test clubs and balls. Amy doesn’t top golf balls. She doesn’t hit them fat, launching fairway dust like a mad gopher.
She has been taught to hold her club face square to the target. Amy in no way shanks. She doesn’t even slice. The ball genuinely is going wherein she intends it to move. It’s maddening.
Something else: Amy doesn’t sweat something.
