Mike Cullity

Golf World 'Voices' column chronicles teen's courageous comeback from cancer

As a 14-year-old, Dani Urman was a promising junior golfer eager to play for her high school team. In January 2010, however, the Colorado teenager learned she had osteosarcoma, a bone cancer that occurs most often in teens and young adults.

Over the next nine months, Urman withstood grueling chemotherapy treatments and surgery to replace her left knee and part of her left femur with a titanium endoprosthesis. Through it all, however, the thought of playing golf again kept her going.

In the May 21 issue of Golf World, my "Voices" column on Urman recounts her struggle and chronicles her courageous comeback. Playing with the help of crutches and a cart, she helped lead Cherry Creek High School to a state championship in 2011. And starting next Monday, Urman and her teammates will seek to defend their crown.

Feature explores competitive golf scene for 'senior' women pros

More than three decades ago, the PGA Tour hatched the idea of a "senior tour" for male pros 50 and older, and thanks to big names like Arnold Palmer, Lee Trevino, Jack Nicklaus and Hale Irwin, the concept became highly successful.

It's been a different story for women pros of a certain age, however. Compared with the lucrative mulligan their male peers enjoy on what's now called the Champions Tour, the competitive landscape for women is relatively barren once their best LPGA years are behind them.

For the last dozen years, however, former LPGA standout Jane Blalock has worked hard to provide an arena for fellow LPGA alums to showcase their still formidable skills. Through her Boston-based company, Blalock runs the Legends Tour, a tour for women 45 and older. Although it operates largely under the radar, with small fields, modest purses and no television coverage, the enterprise is growing, with 10 tournaments slated in 2012. 

My feature in the April 23 edition of Golf World examines the Legends Tour while also exploring thus-far futile efforts by Blalock and others to convince the U.S. Golf Association to establish a U.S. Senior Women's Open, a measure many believe would help increase interest in the senior women's pro game.      

'August Gale' a compelling family saga

In "August Gale," author Barbara Walsh relates parallel tales of loss and destruction - one about a cataclysmic 1935 hurricane that claimed the lives of several Newfoundland fishermen, including her great uncle and three of his sons, and the other about her grandfather's abandonment of his family. Walsh, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who grew up in Pelham, N.H., spent nearly a decade writing her first nonfiction book, and the result is a compelling read.

I interviewed Walsh recently for a feature story about the book that appears in the Lifestyles section of today's New Hampshire Sunday News. She told me how her father, Ron Walsh - whose own father, Ambrose Walsh, abondonded him, his mother and brother when Ron was 11 - in 2002 turned her on to the tragic saga of his uncle, sea captain William Patrick Walsh (better known as "Captain Paddy"). Ron later helped Barbara uncover information about the so-called August Gale through relatives and accompanied her on a journey to Marystown, the Newfoundland hamlet where their Irish ancestors had settled. In the process, as the book recounts, he achieved a measure of healing from the pain his father's abandonment caused.

ESPNHS Girl '18 Under 18' profiles highlight exceptional teens

The spring issue of ESPNHS Girl Magazine features my profiles of three high-school athletes named to the magazine's "18 Under 18" list, which highlights girls from across the country who are doing amazing things in sports and their communities.

One of my profile subjects, Kristen Kelliher of Norwich, Vt., last year became the youngest female to climb the highest peaks in the 48 contiguous United States. Another, Neha Gupta of Fairless Hills, Pa., is a tennis player who founded a nonprofit that helps orphans and underprivileged kids in Pennsylvania and her parents' native India. And the third, Sami Stoner of Lexington, Ohio, is a legally blind cross country runner who competes with her guide dog, Chloe, trotting by her side.

The profiles - part of the "18 Under 18" project spearheaded by ESPN's respective high school magazines for boys and girls - were also featured today as part of a home-page package on ESPN.com.

Golf World project earns honorable mention in national writing contest

The Golf Writers Association of America recognized my collaboration on a special project with Golf World colleagues Bill Fields and Geoff Shackelford in its 2011 writing contest. The project - which examined the Rules of Golf and included my article exploring the rules' history, their evolution and recent debate they've fueled - garnered honorable mention in the contest's non-daily special projects category. Among non-daily entries, Golf World writers won three of four first-place awards. 

 

With compelling memoir, 'Golf Widow' seeks to help other caregivers

In July 2004, PGA Tour pro Jeff Julian died at 42 after a courageous battle with ALS. Last summer, Julian's widow, Kim, took a brave step of her own by self-publishing a memoir that recalls her husband's struggle with the incurable disease and the challenges she faced as his primary caregiver. 

I recently interviewed Kim and wrote about her book in a Feb. 20 "Voices" column in Golf World. The first-time author's effort is notable in that she refuses to sugarcoat neither the difficult experience she and Jeff shared nor the raw emotions she felt. Her hope, ultimately, is that the book will help other caregivers. "I wrote it not only to heal," she told me, "but also because I wanted to make a difference for someone else."

After Jeff's death, Kim spent a little more than two years as a director for Driving 4 Life, an ALS fund-raising initiative she and Jeff cofounded that raised about $9 million. Later, while writing the book, the 41-year-old Missouri native went back to school and earned a psychology degree at Boston College, with hopes of one day becoming a bereavement counselor.

Golf World 'Voices' column highlights Hart's comeback at Pebble Beach

On Thursday, PGA Tour veteran Dudley Hart will take an important step in what has been a trying journey. For the first time since undergoing spinal fusion surgery in June 2009, the 43-year-old pro will compete in a Tour event when he tees it up at the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am.

Hart discussed the ups and downs of his lengthy rehabilitation with me recently, and my "Voices" column in the Feb. 6 issue of Golf World tells his story while highlighting just how difficult it is for an elite golfer to rebound from a lumbar spinal fusion.

A new physical therapy regimen has Hart feeling cautiously optimistic about his comeback prospects. Here's hoping the two-time Tour winner is successful in his quest.

Holy Cross Magazine story profiles Ignatian volunteers

My story on the impact College of the Holy Cross alumni are making in the Ignatian Volunteer Corps appears in the Winter 2012 issue of Holy Cross Magazine, the alumni magazine of my undergraduate alma mater.

The Ignatian Volunteer Corps is a 16-year-old organization that offers adults opportunities to serve the poor or work for social justice while pursuing Ignatian spiritual reflection. Most IVC volunteers are retired or semi-retired individuals looking to give back, and several Holy Cross graduates are involved in the organization as volunteers, staff members and board members.

Among the volunteers the article profiles are Bill Waters '67, a retired Rhode Island man who has worked with the poor in Providence; Warren Howe '63, a longtime educator and musician who mentors inmates at a Maryland prerelease center; Jerry Sheehan '59, a retired dentist who helps underprivileged students at a Boston high school with their college choices; and Tricia Brennan '78, a Boston-area minister who helps guide IVC volunteers as a "spiritual reflector."

NH Sunday News article highlights Granite State's 'expert vagabond'

Yesterday's New Hampshire Sunday News featured my story on Matthew Karsten, a Granite State native who is traveling the world indefinitely while blogging about his adventures.

Karsten was working as a nightclub photographer in Miami when he read a book about long-term world travel. For the next year, he pared down his lifestyle, sold off belongings and banked as much cash as he could in preparation for what began as a yearlong, around-the-world journey.

"I felt like I needed a change of scenery, new excitement, but more than just a two-week vacation," he said. "I really needed to do something drastic."

He embarked for Mexico in November 2010 and spent the next year exploring that country and Central America. Living on about $30 a day, he has traveled mostly by bus and slept in hostels, camped out or bunked with locals.

Karsten supports his travel habit with an online business and modest advertising revenue from his blog, expertvagabond.com. His blogging caught the eye of South African tourism officials, who invited him to chronicle his adventures for two weeks there. He left yesterday and plans to seek input from his blog readers and social media followers about how to spend his days.

After a holiday break in New Hampshire, Karsten plans to resume his wanderings, possibly in South America. "I'll keep traveling as long as I can earn an income or until I get bored with it," he said. "And I don't see that happening anytime soon."

 

Golf World piece probes golf flicks

Over the past three decades, filmmakers have continued to display an appetite for golf movies, despite their mixed box-office results. In Golf World's recent Arts issue, my feature on golf movies explores Hollywood's relationship with the game and how it has evolved in recent years.

Although films such as "Caddyshack," "Happy Gilmore" and "Tin Cup" achieved commercial success by treating the game less than seriously, more recent golf dramas such as "The Legend of Bagger Vance," "The Greatest Game Ever Played" and "Bobby Jones: Stroke of Genius" have been tougher sells. But despite the fact that increasingly bottom-line driven Hollywood studios have shied away from golf movies lately, independent filmmakers' passion for the genre has kept it alive, as the 2011 releases "Seven Days in Utopia" and "Golf in the Kingdom" demonstrate.

The article reveals the stories behind these two new golf movies and shares perspectives from a few Hollywood notables - including "Tin Cup" co-writer/director Ron Shelton and "The Greatest Game Ever Played" screenwriter/producer Mark Frost - on the joys and challenges of making golf movies.