Jacob Gayle was never a golfer. In fact, he never thought golf was a sport—until his life changed profoundly.
Growing up in Western New York, Jacob was surrounded by golf. His uncle, a dentist who scheduled his entire professional life around Wednesday tee times. His younger brother. His cousins—male and female alike. His stepbrother, a national golf hero in Barbados. Everyone in the Gayle family played golf. Everyone except Jacob.
"I just thought, hey, I would never waste my time doing so," he recalls. For decades, he held firm to that position. When he moved to Minnesota 15 years ago and his brother told him there were more golfers per capita there than in Scotland, Jacob remained unmoved. Year after year, he'd tell himself he'd learn eventually. Then he'd find another reason not to.
The irony is striking. Here was a man who spent three to four hours every night in the gym as a bodybuilder and powerlifter—his alter ego to his work as a public health professional and vice president at Medtronic. He was six-foot-five, physically powerful, and constantly in motion. Yet he dismissed golf as "not a sport."
About twenty years ago, he injured his back. Being the kind of person who subscribed to "no pain, no gain," he ignored it. He had no idea he'd developed severe spinal stenosis that was damaging nerves in his spine.
The changes came gradually, then suddenly. First, he was tripping over his own feet running through airports for his global health work. "I was running from one airport gate to another and I started tripping over my own feet and I thought, my goodness, I'm having a stroke, something's going on, what's happening, but I've got to get on this plane. So I ignored it." Then came one cane. Then two canes. Then a walker. Over the course of about eighteen months, Jacob, who had lived his life through physical strength found himself in a wheelchair.
"December of 2018 was when I ended up in the wheelchair full time," Jacob says. He had turned 60 years old—the same year he'd planned to be in the best physical shape of his life. Even the doctors at Mayo Clinic couldn't pinpoint exactly what happened. "Paraplegia of unknown etiology," they called it, and said they had no
further help to offer but would love to watch its course of development.
Most people would have withdrawn. Jacob did the opposite.
A month after paralysis, Jacob and his wife made their annual January trip to
Hawaii. Two months after becoming wheelchair-bound, he and his brother boarded a cruise ship to Antarctica. He'd worked on six continents; Antarctica would be the one he'd only experience in his wheelchair. It became a statement: life doesn't stop when your body changes.
He tried hand cycling. Power wheelchair soccer. Scuba diving. Bowling. Pickleball. He decided to race the Medtronic Twin Cities Marathon—the first year the race welcomed all participants regardless of ability or assistive need. The same marathon where he used to sound the starting horn in his corporate role, he now joined in his wheelchair.
And finally, at age 66, Jacob decided it was time to try golf.
When he heard about adaptive golf clinics at Eagle Lake Park—just five minutes from his Plymouth home—he rolled over on his power chair to check it out. His first word for the experience? "Intimidating."
"I assumed that I was the only person who was doing this for the very first time," he remembers. "Just like my early childhood experiences of being the tall, athletic-
looking “chosen one” who gets kicked off the basketball team within five minutes
(looks can be deceiving), I figured the same thing was going to happen."
Instead, he found others with various disabilities, each learning to adapt the game to their own challenges. Some were paraplegic, some quadriplegic, some had different disabilities entirely. The Minnesota Golf Association has been expanding adaptive golf programming across the state, and Jacob participated in several of their clinics throughout the year. At Eagle Lake, the clinic used a VertaCat—an adaptive golf cart that allowed Jacob to strap in and stand upright to play. Later, at other MGA clinics, he learned he could also play successfully from his own wheelchair.
"There wasn't one way that was going to work for everybody," Jacob reflects. "Everyone had to learn to adapt to it just like I had to learn to adapt to it. I think I enjoyed and continue to enjoy learning the different adaptive ways that I can be successful and that there's no right way or there's no wrong way. There's just another way."
But perhaps the biggest revelation came after that first clinic. "I tell you, after each session, I realized not only how much I had physically exerted myself, but that, as a competitive sport, that it clearly was a sport. Now I get it. I get it. Golf is a sport."
More than that, he found it addictive. The challenge of connecting the club to the ball was harder than he'd imagined, despite all his understanding of geometry, physics, and angles. The humbling of his hand-eye coordination. But also the growth: the fine motor skills, the social connections, the solitude mixed with camaraderie.
"I really love this," he says simply.
His family's reaction? "They said they always knew I was a slow learner," Jacob laughs. "But they were so excited to see me finally catching the fever." Now everyone volunteers to golf with him—in Minnesota with his brother, in Western New York and Ontario with extended family, in Barbados where he returns annually as a snowbird.
At 67, Jacob embodies something essential about golf that gets lost when we focus only on scores and handicaps. He's lived what he calls "a lesson in humility, a lesson in patience, a lesson in gratitude."
"I wanted to believe that I was the kind of person who did not put a lot of emphasis on my physical capabilities," he admits. But losing those capabilities taught him what truly matters. "One of the lessons I've learned out of paraplegia is you don't wait for the end result. You live life and love life while you're living it."
When asked how optimistic he is that he'll walk again, Jacob doesn't hesitate: "I am very optimistic that I am walking in my mind today." And when he takes those first physical steps—if that day comes—he won't walk—he will jump for joy. "After that, I'm going to dance. And then from there I'm going to be running."
Until then, there's golf. The sport he once dismissed. The game his family always loved. The challenge that now connects him to something larger than himself.
"Are there bad days? Are there hard days? Are there unsuccessful days?" Jacob asks. "Well, are we not human? Yeah, of course. But I think it's important that we really do see each as a stepping stone to the next better day, the next greater opportunity."
For Jacob Gayle, golf became one of those opportunities. And in doing so, he joined not just his family's tradition, but a community that understands what the game really offers: connection, challenge, growth, and the simple joy of being out there, playing.