When Jeff Burley, the Adaptive Sports Manager for Salt Lake County Parks and Recreation, went looking for a golf course to introduce a new program using golf as a vehicle to teach leisure skills to military veterans suffering from a variety of emotional, physical, and intellectual challenges including histories of chemical dependency, he went no farther than Mick Riley Golf Course.
The golf course had already developed a large junior golf program providing clinics, camps, and leagues to junior golfers throughout the Salt Lake Valley. Recognizing a need to expand the award-winning county junior golf programs to non-traditional populations, Burley and I—in partnership with the National Alliance for Accessible Golf and its Golf: Accessible and Inclusive Networks (GAIN) program—conducted inclusive training for the contract teachers on the golf course staff. This led to the development of adaptive summer camps for juniors with mental, physical, and emotional disabilities, which also included Valley Mental Health’s Adolescent Residential Treatment & Education Center and its kids in treatment sports programs. These innovating programs have received widespread attention from disabled populations in the area with corresponding increases in participation.
Expanding To Include Veterans Enter William R. Klinger, aka Doctor Bill, a recreation therapist at the Salt Lake Veterans Administration. Based on the success of the Junior Adaptive Golf Programs, Klinger, Burley, and I decided to offer a program to outpatients at the Veterans Hospital with histories of physical disabilities including chemical dependencies. The program’s goal was: “Recovery through recreation, which will improve the participant’s life skills and improve their lives.” The program was implemented in the spring of 2015 with a block of two-hour skill sessions spread over a month and a mini-tournament on Mick Riley’s executive course.