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You want sensitive hands for golf, only not in the way Cathy Gerring’s hands are sensitive. Her fingers are affected by paresthesia, the nerve damage which has been her unlucky lot since she was the victim of a raging fire at the 1992 Sara Lee Classic at Hermitage Golf Club in Nashville, Tennessee.
Gerring, now 59, had won three times in 1990 and was two shots off the pace at the Sara Lee when she went to meet her husband, Jim, for Saturday lunch in the tournament’s hospitality tent. “Try the chicken,” recommended Jim, then the head professional at Muirfield Village.
When it was Cathy’s turn to be served, the chef said that his burner had switched off a few minutes earlier. Would she mind waiting a moment? Alas, the man who came to remedy the situation failed to notice that the flame was still lit before he started to top-up the fuel supply. Barely had he begun than a blue flame spiraled sky high. As he leapt back, some of the fluid cascaded over Cathy, whose face promptly caught fire.
When she put her hands up to save her face, her hands caught fire, only it did not stop at that. The flames engulfed her. Her husband ripped a tablecloth from one of the tables and smothered her with the linen while someone called the emergency services.
Gerring remembers a paramedic having a radio mike on his shoulder. And, to this day, she can hear him saying, “I need a life-flight right now.”
Cathy’s reaction was to wonder why they were calling a helicopter instead of driving her the 40 minutes it would take to get to the nearest hospital in an ambulance. Then what she felt to be the truth dawned: “Oh my God, I’m going to die.”
With the tournament in full swing, the helicopter landed on the highway outside. Cathy was stretchered on board. Fifteen minutes later, when it parked on the roof of the Vanderbilt University Hospital, 10 members of the staff were on hand with bottles of saline solution to pour over her.
Cathy’s father, Bill Kratzert – the head professional at the Fort Wayne Country Club and Cathy’s first teacher – heard the news over the phone. His work done he raced the 400 miles to the hospital. He walked into Cathy’s room and, having stayed for a minute or so, he left.
“At that point,” said Gerring, “I didn’t know what to make of it.” Later, she realised that the father who had coached her and shared so many golf dreams must have taken one look at the extent of her injuries and been unable to cope: “Like me, he sensed my career was over, and in all the years that followed, he never brought the subject up.”
Her hands said it all. “They weren’t my hands,” she says. “My left thumb was burnt to the bone and, though my fingers were not as bad as that, they were never the same again.
Her father, who died in 2016, had been the wisest of teachers, just as he had been for Cathy’s older brother, Billy, who won four times on the PGA Tour. Indeed, something I remember vividly from a conversation we had in 1990, which I think took place after she had defeated Helen Alfredsson at the inaugural Solheim Cup, was about the optimum way to win.
“The best way,” he told her, “is to beat someone playing at her best.” When we caught up recently, Cathy added that Bill never did as other fathers in watching her hit every practice and competitive shot. He wanted her to be able to sort out her own flaws. She was never less than grateful for that.
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