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A Path Altered By Tragedy

Walker Lucky To Be Alive After Accident 2 Decades Ago

 

By Ken Klavon, USGA

Ocala, Fla. – Roger Nedoba sauntered gingerly behind his daughter, a shadow of himself in full pursuit, both caricatures hanging on every shot as if it were yesteryear. If only he could dial back Father Time. If only….

A little older – 67 now – and a little slower due to multiple surgeries, Nedoba made the five-hour drive from Plantation, Fla., to catch a glimpse of the past, a view of his only child who once was a wunderkind on the course. All of it seems so long ago. It’s the kind of tale that always leaves a trail of shaking heads and hearts filled with sorrow.

A parent’s love, however, has no boundaries and never discriminates.

Walker

Lisa Nedoba, who is now married and goes by the Walker surname, shot a 7-over 79 Saturday in the first round of the U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur at Golden Hills Golf and Turf Club. The score was immaterial considering her tribulations. She seemed content dressed in University of Florida blue and orange colors that included a detailed candy-cane like manicure and dangling Gator earrings.

Once one of the top five players in college golf, some 22 years ago at the University of Florida, all of the hopes and dreams tucked away for a better future were vanquished as quickly as it takes to flip a light switch on and off.

Walker, who had learned the game through the late Jack Feola when her father relocated the family to Plantation from Ohio when she was 12, had one of those effortless, fluid swings that could only be imagined by some of the best players. She excelled in the game, satisfying her dad who admittedly pushed her hard. “When she came home from school, instead of asking her if she had homework, I’d suggest she go work on her short game,” said Roger Nedoba, who is forthright about his drive.

Nedoba, a sales representative in the golf industry for 42 years, took copious mental notes as he watched Lisa progress. He loved her – still does – immensely. He wanted her to succeed. The job he had afforded him the opportunity to watch her competitions, such as her run to the 1984 U.S. Girls’ Junior semifinals  and success in American Junior Golf Association events. Walker led Ft. Lauderdale’s St. Thomas Acquinas High School to four Florida State High School championships, becoming only the second female program after the tennis team, led by Chris Evert, to win a state title.

Top college programs from all over the U.S. aggressively recruited Lisa. She narrowed her choices to four universities:  Duke, Florida, Furman and Miami.

Former Florida women’s golf coach Mimi Ryan remembered, “She was a good golfer from Florida and I wanted as many Florida golfers in my program as I could get.”

Walker ingratiated herself quickly. By sophomore year, she had established herself as a star, climbing as high as the third-ranked player in the country. She helped make the program a juggernaut, leading the Lady Gators to the 1986 NCAA Division I national championship. “She had lots of heart, lots of guts,” said Ryan, who came to watch Walker play this week for the first time since the championship squad’s 20-year reunion in 2006. Ryan intimated that the team couldn’t have won it without her. Nedoba took it a step further, adding that Florida would have won five consecutive titles if … if only.

The ugly mistress that is fate paid a call upon Walker on Feb. 7, 1987.

The Lady Gators had just returned from a tournament in Guadalajara, Mexico, when Walker decided to watch a friend’s comedy act at the Copper Monkey bar in Gainesville.

Taking responsibility after a night of drinking, she handed the keys of her new Honda Accord to a male acquaintance. Moments later on a winding campus road that had been slickened by rain, the friend lost control of the vehicle. The car swerved and rammed the passenger side into a tree. The impact knocked Walker unconscious, scrambling her brain.

“I was out in Arizona for work and my phone starts ringing,” said Nedoba. “I thought it was a wake-up call for Mass.”

On the other end of the phone was Judy, his ex-wife and Lisa’s mother. She told him Lisa had been in a terrible accident.

Coach Ryan was in Sarasota that night, watching kids she knew compete in an LPGA tour event, when she received word. Both high-tailed it to Shands Hospital in Gainesville, where a friend of Ryan’s had helped find a top neurologist. When they arrived, they were greeted by a tangle of tubes and a shunt to relieve swelling on the brain.

“I wouldn’t have recognized her,” said Ryan, if not for a nurse friend who escorted her to Walker’s room.

“She was given last rites,” said Nedoba, tears cascading down his cheeks.

Walker lay in a coma for three days. The doctors weren’t hopeful, diagnosing it as a closed-head injury. They feared the worst, saying that if she didn’t die, she’d become a vegetable and would never play golf again. As she lay in her hospital bed, Ryan would speak to her.

“She held my finger,” said Ryan. “I remember asking her where the Lady Gators were ranked and up comes another finger – No. 1 – and I knew then she was going to be OK.”

Lisa remained in the hospital for three weeks. It’s this period that is hazy in Walker’s memory. She had a difficult time filling in the blanks, only remembering the accident but not much else while deferring to her father and Ryan for details, until the point she started intense rehabilitation that lasted five months. She could walk, but “her cognitive skills were not there,” said Nedoba.

“I’m a practicing Catholic,” said Nedoba, tearing up again. “I put it in God’s hands. We (his ex-wife) went to Mass every day and in the prayer of petition every day I would ask everyone to pray for my daughter. But we were both ready to accept the worst if it happened.”

As she learned how to count and speak again, along with doing mundane tasks that used to be second nature, Walker’s health improved. By the fall semester she was back at Florida and red-shirted that year. It was clear that she wasn’t the player of old. Still, the recovery amazed everyone associated with the women’s golf program, and Ryan said she hadn’t expected it.

Walker, however, grew frustrated. Her strength was gone. Her dad noticed she was obtuse, needing extra time to conjure up thoughts and responses. In some of the amateur events she competed in, players noticed she had carried an expressionless, gazed look.

He even went so far as to try and siphon the frustration away by writing Ben Hogan, whose company he worked for at the time, asking him to break down Lisa’s swing. Hogan reviewed the accompanying video tape and said he saw nothing wrong, but Lisa was welcome anytime to visit him in Ft. Worth for a lesson.

“Oh yeah, it was great to get back but my golf game was horrible,” said Walker.

While prepping herself for her final two years of college, Walker wrote to the friend who had been driving that horrific night to learn what had gone wrong. She never heard from him. Today she harbors no ill will, blaming herself for hanging out with “the wrong crowd.”

She ostensibly earned a bachelor’s degree in sports administration before trying her hand at LPGA tour Q-School four times. It was in 1996 that she met her husband, Glenn Walker, when he caddied for her in one of her Q-School attempts. They married in 1998.

When she didn’t make it on the professional circuit, Walker bounced around on the Players West and Futures tours, chasing an elusive dream.  It was a contrived path that brought closure.

“I just didn’t want to be old and later saying, ‘Why didn’t I try?’ ” she said.

In 1999 while burdened by thoughts of throwing in the towel, she did just that. She quit after a Futures Tour tournament in North Carolina.

“I shot a 68 and when I birdied the last hole, I looked up to God and said, ‘Thank you. Now it’s time to go,’ ” said Walker.

Besides playing recreationally and winning mixed club championships with her husband, Walker hasn’t played competitively since that Futures Tour event. Her father and husband provided encouragement to get her game into shape, dad sending an e-mail that said, “Lisa, you go to this tournament and carry yourself like the champion you were.”

The effortless fluidity of the dream swing soon returned. It’s a safe bet to say that the legendary Mickey Wright could find little fault with it.

Today Lisa is content with her life, but the “what ifs” hound her like a pack of rabid dogs. Somehow she’s at peace with a detoured career that left nothing but a desultory road. 

“I used to be a determined golfer,” said Walker, “but I lost that determination. Golf used to be No. 1 in my life, but, oh well.”

Said Ryan: “You can’t wonder “what if” because it happened. Who knows? You never can know, you really can’t.”

Life may have delivered a curveball, but at least Walker didn’t strike out, nor check out. Considering the alternatives, Roger Nedoba feels blessed to again feel the turf below his shoes as he shuffles across the course following his daughter. Retired now, he still lives vicariously through her on each shot, as he did Saturday. He’ll do it again Sunday.

“This is why I love this [atmosphere],” said Nedoba, perched in a wicker chair outside of the clubhouse as he surveyed the golfers bounding about. “It reminds me of the old junior and college tournaments.

“When I watched her today, it was the old Lisa.”

In some ways, it was a rebirth – a merging of two different children of yesteryear and today. No matter, a parent’s love is unconditional.

And it never, ever discriminates.

Ken Klavon is the USGA’s Editor of Digital Media. E-mail him with questions or comments at kklavon@usga.org.