Little one-armed golfer stuns PGA Tour pros in Las Vegas with distance, accuracy

The youngest and smallest golfer at the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open and assorted PGA touring pros were lounging around the practice range at TPC Summerlin when the kid with the short sticks pulled out his driver.

He gripped it and ripped it, John Daly-style.

Dead solid perfect. Even the esteemed golf author Dan Jenkins would have been impressed with the trajectory and distance for one so young and slight of stature.

“That was amazing,” said Colt Knost, one of the PGA Tour players. “He hits it straighter than I do.”

It was amazing when one considers the little guy, whose name is Tommy Morrissey, is only 5 years old.

It was downright preposterous given Tommy Morrissey swings a golf club with only one arm, his left, because he was born without a right arm, or at least not much of one.

He recently shot 1-over 37 for nine holes on a regulation golf course designed by Tom Fazio. He has made a hole-in-one, has holed out from 90 yards and can recite all the winners of the golf majors since he was 4, except for maybe the PGA Championship, because nobody remembers who won the PGA Championship.

The PGA Tour put up a video of his ceremonial tee shot at the Shriners Open on its Facebook page. It has drawn nearly 2.5 million views. When one of the other PGA pros, a fellow named Bryson DeChambeau, tried to imitate Tommy Morrissey’s one-armed golf swing, his shot was not dead solid perfect. It was a miserable slice.

Ryan Moore, a former UNLV star who was the final pick for the U.S. Davis Cup team — and then clinched it for the Yanks by defeating Lee Westwood on the final day — knew better than to attempt Tommy Morrissey’s amazing one-armed golf swing.

Instead, he just asked the little guy to sign his cap.

T-H-O-M-A-S it read in big, squiggly letters.

Unlike his swing, Tommy Morrissey’s autograph is not yet dead solid perfect. One has a feeling it’ll get there.

“I am a golfer, but I am an 18-handicap at best,” Joe Morrissey said when asked how his precocious son developed an interest in golf at such a young age. “Tommy would watch golf with me on Sundays. He’d hop off the couch at 18 months and imitate the guys on TV.”

After holding a staged interview in the media center that became the real deal after the microphones were turned on, much to Tommy’s delight — “Did anybody hear that out there? If you didn’t, tell me. I’m funny,” he said with a disarming smile that would knock the dimples off a Titleist — he went back out to the driving range and did impressions of Arnold Palmer, Rickie Fowler, Rory McIlroy, Happy Gilmore and two of Bubba Watson. They were spot on.

(I was going to ask if he could do Rod Pampling, who shot 60 on Thursday, but Pampling was thrashing around then, and so a Rod Pampling impression didn’t seem necessary.)

After Tommy Morrissey filled up my golf bag with inspiration, I thought about Jim Abbott, the former baseball pitcher born without most of his right arm, who threw a no-hitter for the Yankees. Could little Tommy Morrissey become the golf equivalent of Jim Abbott when he grows up to be bigger Tommy Morrissey?

“Jim Abbott’s a great guy,” Joe Morrissey said. “He was one of the first to reach out to us when Tommy’s story became public.

“I think as a parent, all children should be given the same tools as Tommy — I can, I will. With that attitude, he can go on to play golf, soccer, football, basketball and do whatever it is he wants. As a father, you dream and go ‘Wow. Could he break the barrier of limb deficiency in a professional sport, whatever that might be?’ That would put him in pretty elite company.

“That would be wonderful, just not for him but for the 15 million disabled people in the United States.”

Without the financial and moral support provided by Shriners Hospitals, it’s unlikely Tommy Morrissey would be hitting ’em as straight as he does.

The Shriners people said there would be 22 youngsters — one for each of its hospitals — just like Tommy at the course on Saturday. Maybe these kids don’t hit a golf ball like Tommy, but their stories are just as inspirational.

If the preceding sounds like free advertising for Shriners Hospitals, or at least a public service announcement, it is.

Perhaps it will encourage people who were thinking about going out to the golf course this weekend until they learned Phil wasn’t playing, or until they learned they’d have to ride a shuttle from the Suncoast to TPC Summerlin, to reconsider.

Contact Ron Kantowski at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352. Follow @ronkantowski on Twitter.