News And Notes

In his letter to the USGA, Reid alleged that O'Grady challenged him to a fistfight on the way to the 12th tee. According to Reid, O'Grady became enraged when Reid walked off the green while Kerry Johnston, the third member of the group and a friend of O'Grady's, was lining up a two-foot putt. After Johnston sank the shot, O'Grady raced after Reid and accused him of trying to distract Johnston. "I admit I made a mistake," says the 29-year-old Reid, "but I think Kerry could have spoken for himself. O'Grady uttered the words, 'I'll fight you on it.' I'm a pretty reserved guy, but I know a lot of people who would have flattened him right there."

Says O'Grady, "It started on the 1st hole, when he didn't mark his ball when I was lining up a putt. Then he walked into my line of view for two holes in a row and pulled the same sort of stuff on Kerry. I couldn't take it anymore. I did get right in his face. But if there was a fight, the whole world would know. This guy would be dead—I mean in the ground." O'Grady pauses before adding, "But I don't believe in physical violence. Under no circumstances would I threaten somebody on a golf course."

David Fay, the executive director of the USGA, investigated the incident but couldn't corroborate the charges that O'Grady invited Reid to a fist-fight. Among those Fay questioned was Johnston, who says, "Here we are trying to qualify for a major championship, and along comes this guy who doesn't know what he's doing. Mac did get in his face once. But challenge him to a fight? Come on. This guy just wants a story to tell his kids."

Reid, who, like Johnston, didn't make it out of the qualifier, stands by his story and calls May 15 "unquestionably my worst day of golf." O'Grady, who failed to make it past the June 2 sectional qualifier in Tarzana, Calif., is also upset by the incident, though for a different reason. "They let in guys who don't know the game, and I'm a target," he says. "Anybody who knows me knows that I'm a gentle guy and a traditionalist when it comes to golf."

Bill Allows Equal Access to Tee Times

Last week the New Jersey State Senate unanimously passed Bill S-1656, an order that prohibits private golf clubs from discriminating against their own members based on race, creed or sex. In effect, the bill ends the common practice of excluding female members from the most popular weekend tee times and, in some cases, any weekend times at all. "It's an archaic, good ol' boy system that shouldn't have a place in the state," says state senator Robert W. Singer, who introduced the bill.

Similar laws have been passed in seven other states. A movement for such a law in New Jersey began in 1995 when Sally Goodson, a 15-handicap golfer and full member at the Forest Hill Field Club in Bloomfield, told her assemblyman that she was being denied weekend tee times. "I was working full time and I needed to network on weekends," says Goodson, 53, a director of Work First New Jersey, a state family-development organization. "But I was being denied access to the best spot for networking—the golf course."

No Handicap Is Too Big To Stop Amputee Golfers

Despite a birth defect that left him with no right hand, Mike Hudson of Tarpon Springs, Fla., played baseball for much of his youth. "I was a pitcher and outfielder," he says. "I had Jim Abbott's style of throwing." After high school, Hudson took up golf. "I wasn't very good at first, but I also noticed that I wasn't much worse than people with two hands," says Hudson, who once shot a 69 at a Tarpon Springs course.

On Sunday, Hudson had a 75 to beat John Bragan, a double-leg amputee from Hoover, Ala., by one shot in the rain-shortened South Park Amputee Classic in Louisville. In addition to the overall winner, the tournament, which is one of 29 events sponsored by the National Amputee Golf Association, crowned a female champion, as well as winners in divisions for below-the-knee, above-the-knee, below-the-elbow, above-the-elbow amputees and multiple amputees.