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My Shot Winning the long-drive title is great, but being alive to talk about it is even better
By Lee Brandon
At the time I was a high school junior in Bay Shore, N.Y., nationally ranked in the shot put and the discus and dreaming of qualifying for the Olympics. Following a varsity basketball game, I went to push open the locker-room door but instead fell through a small window. A glass shard sliced open the brachial artery at my elbow, and suddenly my blood was squirting all over the floor. I was rushed to the hospital. Not only did the doctors restart my heart, but they also saved my arm. I was cut to the bone from my elbow to my shoulder, but the nerve somehow remained attached. After the arm was stitched back together, it would be seven years before I could feel all of my hand, and even then doctors told me that I would never regain its full use. Through strength training I proved them wrong, and in 1988 I became the NFL's first female strength coach, working two seasons as an assistant with the New York Jets. I took up golf in 1997 but have squeezed in only 20 rounds. Five months ago my golf instructor, Rex Flory, told me about the long-driving competition. "The woman who won last year hit it 249 yards," Rex said. "You can hit that with a four-wood." I began training an hour a day, four times a week. It looked as if my quest for long-driving glory would be dashed when, a week before the finals, I tore a tendon in my left hand while practicing. During the finals I had to gingerly grip my 47-inch driver, and I won by using basically one arm, not an entirely unfamiliar feeling. Lee Brandon, 39, is a strength specialist in Brentwood, Calif.
Issue date: November 12, 2001
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