What the U.S. Adaptive Open Taught Me About Beginning Again

My first experience with adaptive golf came in 2016, when I was a high school junior volunteering at my local First Tee chapter during a PGA HOPE clinic, where my job was simple: assist in teaching veterans the basics of golf.

I spent the day with men and women who had sacrificed their bodies in service to our country, and all they asked of me was help with a chip shot or a putting drill. At 16 years old, I don't think I fully understood why golf mattered so much to them. PGA HOPE is a program dedicated to giving those who served another outlet to support and promote physical and mental health. Looking back, I realize I was witnessing something far bigger than instruction, I was watching people rediscover pieces of themselves through the game.

That memory stayed with me as I arrived at the fifth U.S. Adaptive Open at Woodmont Country Club.

Over the past few years, like so many, I had been keeping up with the championship and its participants online. I'd seen the viral swings, the trick shots, the comeback stories, but watching the world's best adaptive golfers compete in person is a whole different experience.

RELATED: How Woodmont Country Club Prepared for the U.S. Adaptive Open

I wasn't there to study how they swung the club—I wanted to understand why golf had become the common thread in so many lives forever altered by injury, illness, or tragedy.

Within one hole, that question stopped mattering. Instead, I found myself doing what every golf fan does when they're watching great players: sit in awe of high-level competitors and their athleticism

During the opening round, I found myself following a group that perfectly captured the spirit of the championship. This foursome had a collection of players from the varying categories: Trevor Kennison competed in the seated division, Chris Willis represented the upper limb impairment category, Victor Postillion played in the lower limb impairment division, and Andrew Berglund competed in the intellectual impairment category.

RELATED: Trevor Kennison Doesn't Do Ordinary And Neither Does His Golf Story

Chris Willis, Andrew Berglund, Victor Postillion, and Trevor Kennison pose for a photo on the 10th hole during the second round of the 2026 U.S. Adaptive Open at Woodmont Country Club (South Course) in Rockville, Md. on Tuesday, July 7, 2026. (Logan Whitton/USGA)

I found myself talking with Trevor's family between shots. His girlfriend Kelly stood alongside his mom, dad, stepmom, and agent, all watching with the kind of nervous excitement that's familiar to anyone who's ever rooted for someone they love. They each told me a different version of Trevor's story, but every conversation landed in the same place: immense pride. Not just in Trevor the athlete, but in the person who keeps finding new mountains to climb.

RELATED: Trevor Kennison Doesn't Do Ordinary And Neither Does His Golf Story

Spending time with Trevor and his family became my personal introduction to the championship in a deeper way. It became abundantly clear that every fairway held another remarkable story.

He was one of 96 competitors. Ninety-six lives forever changed by illness, injury, military service, or circumstances they never saw coming, and yet they found ways to channel their hardships into something more.

Rose Veldman was only 10 years old when the 2010 Haiti earthquake brought down the orphanage where she lived. Before the building collapsed, she chose to rescue a three-year-old girl toward safety as the falling concrete crushed both of Rose's legs, forever changing the course of her life.

Sixteen years later, Rose has completely immersed herself into golf with the hope of inspiring others to do what they want, no matter what.

This is Veldman's third Adaptive Open, and she's poised win the Multiple Limb Amputee category once more.

Learning intimately about both Rose and Trevor allowed me to understand the thread connecting every player I met and watched at Woodmont. Their journeys weren't defined by the moments that changed their lives, but by everything they did afterward—the rebuilding, the adapting, the choosing to show up again.

That resilience is what makes the U.S. Adaptive Open so powerful: it celebrates physical ability, but it also reveals the incredible mental fortitude required to heal. In many ways, that was a lesson I recognized from my own experience with grief. Not because my experience mirrors the journeys of the players I met at Woodmont—it doesn't—but because they reminded me that healing often begins in familiar places. I lost my dad, the person who first put a golf club in my hands and taught me to love this game. For a long time, golf became intertwined with grief, and still, every course carries memories, every swing a reminder of the person who should be here beside me.

But slowly and almost without realizing it, golf began to change for me. It stopped being a constant reminder of what I had lost and became a way to stay connected to it. This game gave me somewhere to process, to reflect, and eventually to find joy again. That's what struck me most about the U.S. Adaptive Open. For many of these competitors, golf also became something greater than a sport. It became a form of therapy, community, purpose. While our paths vastly different, I recognized something familiar in the role the game can play when life asks you to rebuild.

That's why this championship feels so much bigger than what words can produce at times. Yes, it showcases extraordinary athleticism and expands our understanding of what elite golf looks like. But it also celebrates something deeply human: the decision to keep moving forward.

The circumstances that changed their lives may have been beyond their control, but the resilience that carried them to Woodmont wasn't. In a game built on starting over after every shot, perhaps there's no more fitting stage to celebrate resilience—not as the headline, but as the quiet thread connecting every competitor, every family walking the fairways, and every fan fortunate enough to witness it.