National Amputee Golf Association's national championship, PGA hosts Special Olympics golf, Tucson vacations offer golfing and health spas, and focus on Nikent

Hear this latest episode of TravelGolf.com This Week.

The National Amputee Golf Association held its National Championship Aug. 28-31 at Orchard Valley Golf Club in Aurora, Ill. In this week’s podcast, host Dave Berner talks to Tournament Director Dennis Ithal about playing golf with a disability.

“I’ve been an amputee for 30 years. When I started playing with one arm, it was no different than when my son picked up the first club when he was nine years old,” Ithal says. “I went out and probably shot a 140. So I practiced hitting with one hand and guess what? After 30 years, you get pretty good at it.”

The PGA of America’s Bob Baldassari talks about the eighth annual Special Olympics National Invitational Tournament, to be held Sept. 14-17 at PGA Golf Club in Port St. Lucie, Fla.

“To me it feels like this is the home that the Special Olympics golf tournament should be at,” he says. “We’re the PGA of America, we’re growing the game of golf, we’re reaching out to people. We’re here to grow the game of golf, and what better place than at the PGA Golf Club?”

What could be better than mixing golf with a little pampering at a great health spa? Chris Baldwin says Tucson is the place to go for an excellent golf/health spa trip.

“Tucson has had these high-end wellness centers, as they call them, for a long time,” Baldwin says. “And they had the golf for a long time, but they never mixed. Now even the very high-end centers are touting their golf too, saying ‘hey, you can get well but also play great golf.’”

In this week’s What’d You Like segment, Equipment Editor Kiel Christianson praises Nikent Golf.

“They started out life years ago as a component company, and have begun making full lines of clubs in the last few years that have been really under the radar but have become quite popular with certain people, including Angel Cabrera, who had one of their hybrids in his bag during his U.S. Open win at Oakmont,” Christianson says.