There is an irony to the case of Bob Lobel. The former Boston sportscaster has been barred from the Woodland Golf Club and playing the sport he loves. He was an iconic sports figure in the Boston area, and I am sure that many people in his golf club once wanted to be in his close group of friends and associates. Now, he is forced to sit on the sidelines.
He suffers from a lousy disease known as spinal stenosis which is slowly crippling him. He must get around the course on a golf cart. The club has determined that the cart damages its greens. In an article by Melinda Cartensen (November 23, 2015) for FoxNews entitled: “Disabled Boston sportscaster files discrimination lawsuit against golf club,” an ethically interesting case featuring Bob Lobel is starting to evolve.
“Bob Lobel, 71, who enjoys playing golf but must use an adaptive cart due to a degenerative condition, has filed a discrimination lawsuit against an Auburndale, Mass., golf club that has barred him from using the cart on its putting greens. David Garfinkel, manager of Woodland Golf Club, offered a written statement that said a test his staff conducted determined Lobel’s cart would cause damage to the green, thus placing an undue burden on the club, which is funded through fees from its hundreds of members.”
However, the case is not quite that simple. The manufacturer of the cart has done extensive testing of its own, and the cart does no damage. Abel Andrade, a sales consultant for Dallas, Tex.-based SoloRider, the larger of Bob Lobel’s adaptive carts, according to Longo, said (regarding imprints):
“The cart is designed specifically not to do that,” Andrade told FoxNews.com. “It can be driven onto the green without impact. It has no more pressure than the riding lawnmowers used to cut the grass.”
The Laws and the Ethics
The club is private, not public. As a private club, they can do most anything they desire. They offered Lobel a sort of compromise: he can hobble out of the cart on his crutches and hit the ball on the fairway but he can’t go on the greens. It’s not much of a compromise. It is like a baseball player being allowed to field but not get up to the plate.
Lobel has filed a law suit under the ADA. He wants damages, attorney’s fees and to prevent the golf course from discriminating against anyone else. Woodland is opposing this because it is private but apparently their argument is full of holes because they do open their doors to the public for tournaments and social events. Ultimately, it will come down to the membership.
This kind of case is not exactly new. Professional golfers have fought for the use of golf carts in tournaments however Lobel’s cart is made to have minimal damage on the greens. In addition, spokespeople for the ADA said that there are provisions under the law to help both parties (the club and the golfer to be accommodated). For example, the cart can have larger or modified tires, or the caddy can simply help him.
The problem is the golf course has not gone out of its way to work with him. In fact, they have hardly had a dialog at all. The club appears to be digging in its heels (pun intended) and they would rather be “right” than to accommodate a member who is slowly being confined to a chair.
If the cart does not appear to cause much in the way of damage and if the ADA is saying that compromises can be reached, why then is Lobel’s private club so hard-headed about this case? My guess is that somewhere in the midst of all of this is a streak of bad ethics. While Lobel has his friends in the club’s membership, it would not shock me to learn there are just as many who view a club member with a physical disability as being somewhat inconvenient or embarrassing.
As in many quarters of our society, we have been all too willing to shut out those who are in some way less than an ideal vision of physical perfection. Exhibit one might be the way in which veterans are viewed, or how those with disabilities are regarded in our workplaces. At what point in the continuum does a person go from being modestly compromised to severely disabled? A golfer with arthritis might move slowly along a golf course and he might even be kidded about it. Supposed he must start to use a cart on occasion and he is told he can no longer play? What has essentially changed? Is it the rules against carts or the subtle prejudices a society holds against those who are not perfect? In addition to the laws governing those with physical challenges, when will it be time to insert a dialog on ethics into the national psyche?
The time has come.
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