RIDGEFIELD, Conn. – The swing is relatively quiet and strikingly efficient.
Golf balls were arcing skyward in succession last week, eventually disappearing over an imposing tree line on back side of the Golf Performance Center range some 250 yards away.
On the surface, it was an effortless performance.
The physical limitations Doug Shirakura instinctively works around each time he sets up over the ball are easily overlooked when the Somers, Connecticut, resident is in launch mode.
Nothing about the swing is awkward or mechanical.
“I think most people watch in disbelief, honestly,” said Roger Knick, a longtime PGA professional who is the owner and founder of Golf Performance Center. “They look at the way he controls the golf ball and quickly stop feeling sorry for him.”
Envy takes over when the sympathy fades.
Shirakura has been playing it as it lies his entire life. He is currently No. 1 among players with a single below-the-knee impairment by the U.S. Adaptive Golf Alliance. The junior aerospace engineering major at Worcester Polytechnic Institute carries a 1.2 index and finished tied for ninth last month at the inaugural U.S. Adaptive Open at historic Pinehurst No. 6.
He possesses an infectious enthusiasm for the game and is highly motivated to improve.
“If I’m being completely honest, playing with my restrictions is not difficult at all,” the 20-year-old said while tuning up for this week’s Eastern Regional Amputee Championship at Penn State. “I mean, this is all I’ve ever known. In that sense, I definitely have an advantage over some of the older guys who may have lost their limbs later in life.”
Shirakura was an infant when his right leg was amputated below the knee, the result of amniotic banding syndrome.
“It mostly affects outer extremities,” he said. “My right hand was kind of fused together. My fingers didn’t form well, so I had to have multiple surgeries when I was a baby to reconstruct my hand. My right foot was almost to a point where it was unusable. It was either I keep the foot and kind of take a gamble or amputate it and use the prosthetic.
“That’s what my parents went with, and it’s worked out great.”
Aki and Miyuki Shirakura both played golf and introduced their son early on. He also played a number of sports growing up, but none of those competitive outlets sparked his imagination.
Mom halted a blossoming karate career when prosthetics began to break.
So that left golf, and…
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