On just one leg, Will Parr, shown here at Olde Salem Greens,
is able to do what a lot of people with two legs are unable to do on the golf course.

Where there's a Will there's a way

Overcoming adversity is just par for the course
when it comes to Salem's Will Parr

By John Shimer

He arrives just after 9 a.m. on a spectacular late July morning sharply dressed in a red and white horizontally striped shirt with khaki pants and a white Boston College cap.

There is no hiding his handicap as Will Parr, 15, strides up on crutches alongside his father, Mike. Half the pant leg is folded up neatly where the bottom half of his right leg was surgically amputated four years ago due to an affliction he was born with, Desmoid Tumors or Aggressive Fibromatosis.

I’ve never met him. I just heard the wide array of plaudits about the “inspirational golfer over at Olde Salem Greens.” So what better way to really get acquainted with Will Parr than to meet him for a round of golf on his home turf at the rolling nine hole track off of Willson Street in Salem?

It is important to note Parr is not a tragic figure, far from it. He has not allowed the traumatic event that occurred so early in his life that could have easily have sent him into a tailspin to define who he is. There are no questions of “why me?” Quite to the contrary, he has Carpe Diem written all over him. It does not even take one very enjoyable nine-hole round with him to see that he embodies the glass half full approach to things.

He is very much at peace with the extremely rare disease, which over the course of his treatment led to the surgical procedure to remove his leg.

According to the Desmoid Tumor Research Foundation (www.dtrf.org), approximately one in five-million kids are born with the Desmoid Tumors that have afflicted Parr his entire life requiring him to make weekly and monthly checkups at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston for most of his life. He takes several different medications that have affected him differently, and has undergone multiple serious surgeries, including two amputations on his right leg.

There are multiple problems with Desmoid Tumors. On top of being especially rare in children; the causes are unknown, the tumors affect different people in different ways and are unpredictable, which means they are tricky to manage and treat. There is no one single accepted course of medical treatment and it may take numerous treatments to stabilize or shrink the tumors or at the very least improve the symptoms.

Even after the two amputations, he still has a tumor in his right leg that must be monitored because the tumor could still grow into his pelvis and abdomen region where it could affect his vital organs or grow near his spine. To that end he gets checked out every six months through MRIs. He also has to take an oral chemotherapy pill, which at last glance appears to be taking effect having shrunken the tumor a little bit after the most recent MRI.

A wealth of interests

Parr has never allowed the disease or four-year-old disability to slow him down one bit. Whether playing golf on the Salem High School golf team and playing basketball with classmates in gym class, biking with neighborhood buddies, making presentations in front of dozens of strangers on a daily basis at his job at the Salem Witch Museum, or representing his student body as class vice president or getting all A’s and B’s in the classroom for a near 4.0 GPA his freshman year last year, Parr is not into handicaps.

“I think the main thing we tried to teach Will is that he can do anything and we’ll help him with whatever he wants within the realm of having five kids and chickens and cats and dogs – it’s a busy household,” said Will’s mother, Michele, who said Will wasn’t much of a joiner in terms of playing sports or other activities when he was young, but with adolescence that aspect of his life has really blossomed.

“He can do whatever he wants academically, socially, physically and we try to cheer him on and create as much consistency because that seems to be good for the kids overall. We want to do whatever any other parent does.

“We think it’s great that he is involved in such a positive activity with the kindest, nicest, most supportive people here in the Salem community from (Salem High golf) coach Tom Doyle and the people at the school, to the people at the course and the other members of his team and their parents,” Michele stated. “(Will) spent months in the hospital and years of incredible difficulty. I’m going to cry, but when I think about him walking up to practice with his clubs on his back, every time I see that, it’s wonderful.”

Thanks to a voracious appetite to try new things that expands well beyond any average kid dabbling into this and that, Parr was first introduced to golf two years ago.

A quick study on the links

After staying up virtually all night at a friend’s house two summers ago, give or take an hour or two of sleep, Parr and neighborhood buddy Patrick Charlton arrived at the conclusion that they were going to play golf the next day. Charlton had only recently been introduced to the game and suggested that Will might enjoy the game. They got up the next morning and made a tee time for 3 p.m.

“We were just trying to find something to do the next day,” explained Parr.

“The first time I actually played I did use a prosthetic and that was the only time I actually used a prosthetic,” said Will, who has not used a prosthetic leg in about a year because they take a while to get adjusted and fitted right, and since he is still growing (last summer he grew three inches) he often quickly outgrows the leg within a couple of weeks or months forcing him to spend more time in the doctor’s office when he’d rather be doing other things.

“We walked the whole course playing nine holes and it was just very uncomfortable; it didn’t work so I never used it again.”

It was not exactly love at first sight between Parr and golf, but the next day his buddy brought over his driver to hit some balls in his large back yard into the woods. It is an exercise Parr does quite often now and one he and his parents call “pruning the trees” – although Parr is quick to note that only the worms in his backyard were in mortal danger early on.

A couple of days later they would go again and relatively soon thereafter it started progressing to every week, or every couple of weeks. Last summer through the junior golf clinics and the junior golf program run by Doyle, that interest was taken to the next level, which would lead to Parr joining the Salem High team.

A balancing act that is hard to believe

After exchanging introductions, the time to tee off has arrived. Having never played the course before, we let our guide go first. Walking over to the tee box, Parr casually drops his crutches, takes a couple of practice swings then promptly smacks the ball nearly two hundred yards splitting the fairway. As someone who regularly struggles with balance and abiding by the golden rule in golf “let the club do the work,” watching Parr balance magnificently and make an easy, tempoed swing through the ball is a sight to be seen. The swing is something Doyle still marvels at every time he sees it.

“It’s amazing to watch him do what he does,” Doyle says shaking his head. “Downhill lies, uphill lies, it doesn’t affect him. He’s got incredible balance and concentration. It’s really an amazing thing to watch and certainly very impressive. This game is hard enough, but to be further limited or restricted makes the game that much harder.”

It’s my turn, and to say I have a schizophrenic game is an understatement – on any given day a score between 100 and 80 is possible depending on what kind of rhythm I am in. I’m suddenly feeling even more unbalanced than usual at the tee and I promptly smash my first drive straight into the woods, take a Mulligan, then top my second drive just short of the women’s tees. A nice little snowman eight to start and the round has begun.

Playing with Will is very relaxing, however. He is quiet, but not shy. He is by no means the perfect player, as he will tell you. Adhering to the Phil Mickelson philosophy, “if you’re playing the game you’ve always got something to work on,” he and coach Doyle spend most of their practice time working on his chipping – a point of emphasis for the entire Salem High team. He has also struggled to find the right comfortable putting stroke because despite using his crutches to putt to secure more balance, bending over for the pendulum motion through his shoulders is probably the most difficult aspect of the game for him.

That being said, for a game that is very mentally demanding Parr has the perfect demeanor – calm, cool-headed, focused, and unflappable. I guess that is understandable given the fact that the real life hazards he has faced in his first 15 years would make the gigantic blue mass surrounding the island green on the 17th at TPC Sawgrass look like a creek.

A strong sense of humor

With that solid mindset, occasionally shanking his ball a bit off to the right side rough or three-putting after making a couple of great shots into the green does not spoil his morning. He is mature beyond his years, and you can tell when he talks about the steps he had to go through to get past the surgery.

“The attention definitely (was one of the biggest mental hurdles). It’s certainly odd when you’re 11 and walking around thinking about being just another kid as opposed to someone people are jumping out of your way or holding the door for or telling their little kids to be quiet when they are asking questions. It is certainly different, but in a good way,” explained Will, who said developing a sense of humor about his predicament – something he is also well known for – came naturally.

“I found you sort of have to have a sense of humor. You have to find the little things that are funny and run with them rather than dwelling on the inconvenience of it all,” stated Will, who has been repeatedly asked over the years if he had a motor boating accident or if a shark attacked.

“Now that I have a job at the Witch Museum people ask me if a witch cast a spell on me and I say, ‘Yea.’”

He is a kid who loves to be outdoors, always has, so he enjoys the social aspect of the game more than anything else. Golf is about fun first as the game should be for any player. And it is this beaming positive presence that he carries daily that people are drawn to and has drawn the admiration of folks like coach Doyle as well as the rest of his high school community.

“He doesn’t get rattled, you can’t tell if he hit a great shot or a bad shot, he has the perfect demeanor for golf, which he carries into his whole life,” Doyle commended. “Nothing gets him too high, nothing gets him too low. He just goes with the flow and does what he needs to do.

“Honestly, you’ll never catch him talking negatively about the leg or complaining about it. He’s dealt with it because he’s a positive upbeat kid having a great time trying to be the best he can,” Doyle continued. “He’s universally respected. He volunteers at the junior golf clinic, he volunteered at our fundraising tournament (for the high school golf team), he’s working a part time job, and he’s just doing wonderful things with his life. I just think the sky is the limit. If he keeps progressing great things will happen for this young man.”

Wrapping up our round of golf, I can state without equivocation that Will Parr is one of those athletes you root for; a high-character kid who strives to be the best he can. It’s why he’s a role model and will continue to be for anyone that meets this young man.

“I haven’t had that conversation with him (about mentoring athletes or other children with disabilities), but I certainly think it’s something he would be perfect for. I don’t know if you can handle what he’s gone through better than he has,” Doyle said. “Everyone can learn from him and if he wanted to be a role model he’s well on his way. He’s a role model for my sons. They come up to practice and they love him and I hope they can learn from him. His attitude, perseverance; he’s got some great traits he can pass on to the people of the world.”