Kevin Hall in USA Today

From the newsroom of the USA Today, Tuesday, January 22, 2008

.....Deaf golfer's drive for life is a story worth hearing
By DeWayne Wickham

Kevin Hall has the kind of story that ought to generate a best-selling book or a big-screen movie.
Deaf since the age of 2, he is a 25-year-old professional golfer who won his first tournament last week — a victory that went largely unreported in the media. How ironic: A deaf man wins a golf tournament, and those of us who can enjoy the sounds of life hear nothing of it.
Hall finished four strokes ahead of his nearest competitors in an event on the Hooters Pro Golf Tour, a proving ground for men who want to one day play on the PGA Tour, the major league of professional golf.

Where most people would see his hearing loss as a handicap, Hall has found an advantage in it. "It is easier for deaf people to get into their own little world on the golf course. Hearing people have to deal with distractions, airplanes, birds and people talking loudly. Hearing people rely on sound (of club striking the ball) for feedback, but golf is mainly a feel game," he says.
Even so, life as a pro golfer has been anything but easy for Hall. He and his father, Percy, spend much of the year chasing a dream. They shuttle between Hooters Tour events — for which Hall must pay an entry fee — and his efforts to win a slot in tournaments on the Nationwide Tour, which is one step below the PGA Tour.

"We can't afford to fly," Percy Hall says.

Rarely at home

They are away from their Cincinnati home for weeks at a time competing for a share of the small purses on the Hooters Tour. Hall's first-place finish last week earned $11,909. This year he has won $23,470. That's pocket change for those on the PGA Tour, but a big step up from the $9,906 Hall earned last year on the tour.
If this is starting to sound to you like the stuff of a B-movie, you lack imagination — and a heart.
Throughout his life, Hall has excelled at things in which sound plays a big part. Six years after losing his hearing, he was the nation's second-ranked bowler in the Bantam division, ages 10 and younger. He was 9 when his bowling coach offered to teach him to play golf. By 12, Hall had won his first amateur golf tournament. He went on to earn a golf scholarship to Ohio State University, the first black to do that. And while there he earned a degree in journalism.
In 2004, Hall won the Big Ten golf tournament by 11 strokes, recording the lowest winning score in a 54-hole championship.

Bears watching

While he is not the golf phenomenon Tiger Woods turned out to be, or has accomplished enough at this stage of his career to have won a slot on the PGA Tour, there is something special about Hall that bears watching. And there's something about him that ought to make us want to stand up and cheer.

"I will continue to do this until there is evidence that I definitely don't have the game to make it to the (PGA) tour," he told me. "As long as my heart is in it, and I want to keep working hard and have the confidence that I belong out on tour, I will continue to pursue my dream."
Hall deserves every chance he can get to make it to the PGA Tour. He ought to have a sponsorship deal that frees him from worrying about the cost of chasing his dream on the Hooters Tour. Some golf equipment or sportswear company with a big heart — and a smart marketing director — should hold Hall up as an example of what someone with a disability can do if he struggles against the odds. As it is, he struggles to cobble together the money he needs to keep his dream alive.

"If the day comes that I don't have the heart to do what needs to be done to make it to the PGA Tour, that's the day I know it's time to pack it in and move on," Hall says.
Given all that he has overcome, I hope that day doesn't come any time soon.

DeWayne Wickham writes on Tuesdays for USA TODAY.