So on Friday, they threw a party.

Politicians and generals turned out to sing the golf course’s praises. Pro football players were there to support the troops. Live bands rocked.

A hot rod show, a barbecue and the women from Hooters also turned heads.

“There’s a lot of bubbly stuff going on – it’s going really good,” said Harold “Pepper” Roberts, a member of the volunteer corps that runs the nine-hole course on the grounds of the American Lake Veterans Hospital in Lakewood.

More than three years ago the volunteers – most of them veterans of World War II, Korea and Vietnam – came up with an ambitious plan to turn the course into a haven for veterans with disabilities. They were thinking especially of the new generation of vets recovering from their wounds.

Mission accomplished, several of those service members said Friday.

“Instead of sitting in the barracks by yourself, thinking about what happened to me, you can get out and forget about that stuff for a while,” said Sgt. 1st Class Loren Apel, an Army reservist from California who’s recovering from a shoulder injury at Fort Lewis.

He and about 350 others from the post’s Warrior Transition Battalion were welcomed Friday for a daylong scramble tournament.

Many participate each Monday in the course’s free lessons and free golf for wounded service members.

Staff Sgt. Thomas Butler has brought soldiers from the battalion every week since he first tried golf a year ago. He’d never played before.

“Now I’m hooked,” said Butler, a 24-year soldier who was hurt in a training accident at Fort Lewis.

“It gets your mind off of things,” he said. “Everybody here is a veteran, we all have that in common.”

David Best said the course pulled him out of the depression that gripped him after he was critically wounded during his second Iraq tour with the 5th Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment.

Home at Fort Lewis recovering from injuries to his arms and a hip, he was urged by a counselor to go over to the VA links and see what was going on there.

“It changed my life,” said Best, a retired noncommissioned officer.

At the golf course he found fresh air and activity and, more than that, a supportive community of fellow veterans who understood what he’d been through.

Roberts, a longtime golf instructor, helped him overcome the physical pain of his wounds by teaching him to swing left-handed. Before, Best could play just a few holes; these days he can go 27.

Now medically retired, Best has joined the golf course volunteers, serving as treasurer and a member of its board of directors. He speaks to local service clubs about supporting the venture, and goes out of his way to bring younger soldiers over to try it out.

“I’ve tried other courses, and people kind of look at me. I walk with a stick, I’m not that good,” Best said. “But here it’s not about playing the game, it’s not about being good.”

“I feel very comfortable out here,” he added. “I don’t feel like I have a disability.”

Mike Kearney, an Air Force Vietnam veteran and the course’s manager, said more than 130 local businesses have donated money and services to the transformation. The United States Golf Association made two grants totaling $65,000, he said.

When the volunteers first set out on their course makeover, they had a budget of $270,000; they’ve received donations worth $470,000.

The volunteers have built a three-hole beginner’s course for disabled players, a covered hitting area at the driving range and a covered picnic area.

They’ve refurbished the main course top to bottom and added several specialized carts for players who can’t stand.

They also have the no-charge Mondays for wounded soldiers from Fort Lewis, as well as veterans from the VA hospital and the state soldiers home in Orting.

They’re moving on to the next phase, Kearney said: They’re going to tear down the old cinder-block caddy shack and replace it with a two-story clubhouse.

Volunteers also say Jack Nicklaus has agreed to design a nine-hole addition.

Kearney said it’s all working out the way he and the other volunteers hoped it would back in 2004, after their initial “first-swing” clinic with disabled veterans set them on their way.

It’s all about past generations of veterans showing their appreciation for the next.

“We are all retired military, veterans. We’ve been there, done that,” Kearney said. “We know what they’re going through.”

Michael Gilbert: 253-597-8921

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