U.S. ADAPTIVE OPEN

July 12, 2023

Larry Celano

Pinehurst Resort & C.C. (Course No. 6)

Quick Quotes

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Q. Larry, just seems like you're having a great time out there. Can you talk us through the week and why you're having such a good time?

LARRY CELANO: Well, right now I'm a little emotional. I'm just excited because I get to come out and play with my new family that have been creating or becoming for the last three years. I'm really excited for the young kid, Max, and how he played. So excited.

And the young -- and also for Thomas Duffy. Just excited for the young kids. I just think this is the greatest thing. Our whole goal is to come out and not for you to look at us as disabilities but as golfers.

Q. Talk a little bit more about Max yesterday. Shooting 2-under in the seated category. Just incredible. What does that say about where the game is headed, the adaptive game?

LARRY CELANO: I was telling -- when Dennis Walters held that trophy up last year I said, they're coming. I've been watching that because I played with Max down in Tucson. Great kid. Great golfer. I got him that time. Probably be the last time somebody beats him in the Seated division.

It's great. It's refreshing. We just started the Seated Golfers Association and I'm so excited for him, so excited for these younger kids.

It's a young man's game. The goal is to hopefully have a Senior Open some day. What he's going to do for the seated division is going to be unbelievable.

Q. One last one. Can you talk a little bit about how you got involved in the game of golf, what got you into the game of golf?

LARRY CELANO: What got me into the game of golf is all my buddies started playing in late '90s, early 2000. I was I was one of those guys that thought it was a waste of perfect farmland -- until I got hooked. Real quick I Googled -- well, I didn't Google back in 2001, but went online and looked for adaptive golf and found a late name Kathy Corbin and she's an instructor.

I met with her at one of the golf courses in Phoenix and had lessons and all that. After I got my lessons, they had a cart over at the city course. Go play it. When I got over there and played it, I was hooked.

Q. That was it.

LARRY CELANO: I have two claims to fame. One is I hit a birdie before my first -- wait, I had a hole in one before my first birdie, and then I consider myself one of a kind because I have a purple heart, hole in one, and a combat jump. There is only 90,000 American soldiers that have jumped out of airplane into combat, and 95 percent of them are passed away. I'm in a select group with that.

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