Brock Leitner adapts to a new game

by Logan Groeneveld-Meijer, USGA P.J. Boatwright Intern

Difficult as the game of golf can be to learn, there are some who are just plainly talented enough to teach themselves to play at a high level, regardless of any level of physical impairment. 

Such is true of Brock Leitner, an adaptive golfer out of Summerland, B.C. He’s set to contend in the 2025 U.S. Adaptive Open, to be held at Woodmont Country Club in Maryland on July 7-9, playing in the seated category of players. 

Brock, a 27-year-old former professional motocross racer, sustained a spinal cord injury in a 2022 racing accident that left him paraplegic. In the wake of his injury, Brock’s attitude is one that indicates he is as positive as he is unfazed. 

“Things in life took a turn, but you know what? They turned out for the best,” said Brock, whose berth in the U.S. Adaptive Open comes in just his second year playing seated in a ParaGolfer. “When one door closes, another one opens, and now here we are.” 

The connection to golf, among other sports, just comes naturally to Brock. Growing up in the small town of Beaverlodge in northwestern Alberta, he played “all the school sports,” a long list that included basketball, volleyball, hockey and freestyle skiing. He first rode a dirt bike before the age of four and dreamt of being a pro racer in that discipline throughout his upbringing. 

The golf notch in his belt first came at the age of 13. Being from northern Canada, Brock would travel to California during winter months to keep up with motocross training. There, his trainer Sean Hamblin, a pro racer (and scratch golfer), assisted Brock’s foray. 

“Never in my life have I taken a lesson,” Leitner said. “Luckily for me [Hamblin] was a scratch handicap, so when we weren’t training, he and I would go down to the driving range, and he’d help me out.” 

While accomplishing his dirt-bike related goals, Brock reached a Handicap Index of 4 and hoped to make it to scratch before his life-changing accident. Within a year after the accident, he began to explore his adaptive options, from apparatus to equipment. 

“I stayed in my wheelchair, sitting down,” he said of how he first went about it. “I cut clubs, I bent them until they broke and then I re-welded them just so I could get the proper lie angle.” 

Needing an alternative to the wheelchair for competition, Brock eventually raised funds for his ParaGolfer, a mobility chair designed to allow its user to assume a golf stance. That’s what he makes use of today, along with a custom-fit bag of gear from TaylorMade, the Canadian sector of which sponsors him.  

He swings one-handed, which he actually has “many rounds” of experience with, whenever separate prior motocross injuries impeded the use of both arms. 

“I would have a broken left collarbone or something like that, and was still able to swing with my right arm,” Brock recalled. 

Making the field for this year’s U.S. Adaptive Open is a feat Brock is extremely proud of accomplishing, and it follows a winter of constant training. 

“My dad and I put a simulator in our garage,” Brock said. “All winter, every second day I was in the simulator just hitting balls, dialing yardages and figuring out what works, what I needed to work on, how to make that solid contact all the time and be consistent.” 

All that training culminated in Brock playing in a Qualifier for the championship at American Lake Veterans Golf Course in Lakewood, Wash. Shooting 8-over par, he felt he could’ve converted more opportunities but his spot in the championship proper was eventually secured. 

In preparing for the championship, Brock remains hard at work. He gets in several rounds per week as permitted by his other schedule of running his own laundromat in Summerland. 

“I still have that thing called a ‘job,’ unfortunately,” he jokingly said with a smile. 

His dad helping him throughout the winter only partially represents the unwavering support Brock continues to receive from his parents, who have been right there for him his entire life, whether for motocross, hockey or golf-related endeavors. 

“My parents didn’t miss many races, my mom was right there by my side in the earlier years when my dad was working,” Brock said. “Now here we are again, we’re traveling all over together, it’s just a different venue. It’s just a golf course instead of a dirty motocross track.” 

Brock’s first Adaptive Open start comes in the championship’s fourth year, indicative of adaptive golf’s upward trend. In addition to feeling proud of accomplishments, Brock knows those joining him on the course in July are worthy of much applause. 

“To be able to have something like this, and where adaptive golf is going, there is just so much talent out there in various different categories,” he said. “These people do not let their impairment stop them from doing what they love and competing at a high level.” 

As for Brock’s own mentality, his Instagram bio just about says it all: “Whether I’m walking or rolling, I’m still rocking and rolling.”