Where There's a Way: Maine Adaptive Sports and the Future of Adaptive Golf

Maine Adaptive Sports and Recreation has created access to outdoor programming for people with disabilities for over 40 years. Everything they offer comes at no cost to participants, funded by volunteers, donors, and partner venues.

For Brandon Merry, the organization's senior program manager, the mission behind every activity comes down to one word: independence. "It's not just recreation, it's not just exercise, it's social interaction, it's friendships," he says. "It's a family."

Golf is a central part of that family for a teenager named Kellan.

He came home one day and told his parents he had signed up for the golf team, a sport he had never played. His family reached out to Maine Adaptive. The organization had one adaptive golf cart in the state, stored more than two hours away, which made regular access nearly impossible for Kellan's family.

So they found another way.

Kellan's family and an anonymous donor stepped forward with grant funding for two VertaCats. And Kellan joined his middle school golf team.

What the Right Equipment Changes

Maine Adaptive used an older adaptive golf cart for years, and was grateful for it. But when participants started using the VertaCat, the shift was immediate. Better seating support, less friction, a bag attachment reachable from both seated and standing positions.

The players who had been going out every once in a while started asking for more days. The ones who had been lifting out of sand traps and skipping difficult lies could now go in and actually play the shot. "The VertaCat really allowed players to challenge themselves, to look at those shots and say, now I'm going to go save my score."

With the older cart, approaching a putt meant coming in at a 90-degree angle and committing. With the VertaCat's micro-adjustments in the standing position, players can get to the ball and line themselves up properly. "People were like, can we add more golf days? Can we go play?" Brandon says.

Maine Adaptive uses the VertaCat for bocce, archery, and at a veterans' camp, a participant danced with their kids — a very special moment.

The Golfers Who Were Waiting

The reach keeps expanding but there’s been a pull to golf. Every summer, Mary Scanlon hears from families of lifelong golfers who assumed the sport was behind them.

"Every summer I get messages from wives of lifelong golfers who thought that golf was over for them," she says. "The VertaCat is definitely a way of bringing that sport back to people who thought it was gone."

Those callers find Maine Adaptive through a web search, a friend's referral, or by spotting a VertaCat out on a course.

One summer, a man battling ALS drove four hours with his family to use the VertaCat for an afternoon. His kids loved miniature golf, but he couldn't get around a course from his power chair. The VertaCat got him onto the putting green. He hit balls at the driving range. Most of all, he was with his family, doing something together they hadn't been able to do. His family called afterward to say thank you.

"Golfers are lifelong golfers," Mary adds. That loyalty — that pull toward the game — doesn't go away when mobility changes.

It just needs somewhere to go.

What Courses Can Do Right Now

Maine Adaptive’s partner golf courses store the VertaCats on-site and occasionally make them available to other players as needed.

In the future, Brandon hopes to take the VertaCats on tour around the state, bringing adaptive golfers to courses they've never played, and showing those courses firsthand what demand looks like when access is there.

"All the courses we've talked to have been super welcoming," Brandon says. "They say, 'How do we make it work? How can we do this?’"

The VertaCat stores and charges like a standard golf cart. Staff training typically takes an hour or two.

Meanwhile, Maine Adaptive's golf program has a waitlist. Mary fields those calls too, "If other golf courses had these golf carts, then it would be easier to help work with those people on the waitlist. Not all of our students necessarily need our volunteers or staff for training. They need the cart."

The demand exists. The community is already looking for places to play. If you want to see what that looks like in action, find a VertaCat near you or schedule a demo.