The Jim McLean Golf Center at Waterchase Country Club in Fort Worth, Texas hosted a two-day training event dubbed Birdies for the Brave that allowed a handful of veterans to work on their games despite disabilities from combat wounds.
“It was going to happen,” said Tracy Reep, a veteran who lost his left eye and two fingers on his left hand in combat in 2003, to the Fort Worth Star Telegram. “I was going to play golf again, but the quality of golf I was going to continue to play was in question. So coming to this with Mr. McLean, his son and the rest of his staff chipping in to provide these lessons was incredible.”
Jim McLean’s son, Matt, one of the event’s instructors, said he enjoyed helping the veterans. “These guys are heroes, so it is great to be able to give something back,” Matt McLean said. “They all did really well, and it was a lot of fun.
“They can still play really well,” he added. “There is no reason they can’t enjoy the game and actually play well.”
But it wasn’t the disability alone that hurt one veteran’s golf game.
“Most of us have bad fundamentals coming in just from stuff we learned along the way,” he said. “The staff broke down our swings. Every aspect of the game individually they broke it down for us, which is what we needed.”
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