June 16, 2021 | BY AAGD STAFF
Being a Black golf coach in a predominantly white sport Carlos Brown has always been in the minority among his professional colleagues. Being a Black amputee golf pro narrows that realm even more. Growing up, Brown says that his father even told him that in this sport there would not be many that looked like him.
“I represent a group of people bigger than myself — two groups of people bigger than myself,” says the gifted golf instructor. “I can’t cut corners. I can’t cheat people.” But through it all of the tragedy he has experienced, he still has found a silver lining.
That tragedy happened in 2016, when Brown was teaching a lesson and stepped out of his golf cart and into a deep sprinkler head. The accident sprained his ankle badly and a shortly afterward an infection set in. After being rushed to the emergency room, the award-winning golf coach found himself waking up from a surgery where his lower left leg had been amputated.
“When I show people my leg, it’s a physical representation of the giant that I slayed…”
After the amputation, Brown’s life was forever changed. As he continued to heal — physically and emotionally— he prepared himself to relearn how to do things he’d once done with ease. and he had to relearn ways for regaining his independence and how to do even the very basic, daily tasks such as walking and dressing himself. Everything was different now.
The determined Irving, Texas golf pro refused to even consider giving up the game he loved so much. “I knew I was going to play again. I knew I was going to teach,” he say to Nike Journal “But what I didn’t know was that the journey was going to be a transformation.” In returning to the golf course, he had to learn how to bend down to pick up a golf ball.
Brown believes that life, like the golf course, is an uncontrollable environment, he confided to Nike Journal. “You have to control the controllable” is a maxim he returns to frequently.
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Brown’s experience and overcoming this life-changing obstacle have inspired and given hope to many others. He may have not been able to control what happened, but his faith and positive attitude helped him to realize that his life was not over, and nor was his passion for the game that he loved to play and teach, so much.
“I just love being out here. I love what I do. I love being a golf professional…”
Today, with 17-years of experience in teaching and coaching golf and running his Brown Golf Academy (Carlos Brown Golf), he credits his rise from the accident to his support system: the people who were at his side when he woke up after his surgery. He says that the support system is what he now aspires to be for other people going through the same situation, he told Nike Journal. “If a kid that is an amputee sees me, then maybe he goes, ‘Hey, you know what, I can be a golf professional. I can play golf.’”
In the “Moving Mountains” series by Nike Journal, about athletes persevering to find personal meaning in sport, Brown shares more details about his amazing life as an amputee golf pro.
