He lost the use of his legs, now he’s a 2-time national champion

Would he rewrite history if he could?

That’s the question 20-year-old Max Togisala, paraplegic and champion golfer, is pondering during an interview at the Valley View Golf Course clubhouse. Max is in heavy media demand these days, due to the fact he’s won back-to-back U.S. Adaptive Opens, the first at Pinehurst, North Carolina, in 2023, and the second last month at Sand Creek Station in Kansas.

Both years, Max put a Scottie Scheffler-type beating on the competition en route to his national championships, winning by multiple strokes. His scorecard from his second round at Pinehurst, a two-under-par 70, is framed and hanging on a wall in the USGA Golf Museum in New Jersey with this inscription: “The lowest score in competition on a rated golf course by a player in a seated position.”

Max’s story is all the more compelling because of how quickly it’s unfolded. Just 2½ years ago, he was on his way to playing college golf at Western Wyoming College, the first step on a journey he hoped might wind up at the U.S. Open that doesn’t have “Adaptive” in the title.

He’s played golf since the age of 3, when his dad, also named Max, began taking him to the courses near their South Ogden home along with his older brother, Malosi. The senior Togisala wanted his sons to learn a sport they could play — and play together — for life.

Max displayed an early affinity for the game. By the time he was a teenager, he could shoot close to par and golf became the center of his life (his story is not dissimilar to another Utah-grown golf champion of Polynesian descent, Tony Finau, who likewise learned the game from his dad on public courses).

By his senior year at Bonneville High School, Max’s handicap was plus-one (better than par) and colleges started taking notice. When the golf coach at Central Wyoming College extended him an offer, Max jumped at it.

“It was my dream since junior high to play college golf; it was everything I wanted,” says Max.

But then came the ski trip to Sun Valley.

Near the end of his senior year at Bonneville in 2022, Max and several of his friends set out on a road trip to Idaho. The Ogden kids all had season ski passes to Snowbasin, which entitled them to five free days of skiing at Sun Valley, Snowbasin’s sister resort.

“It was a no-brainer to go,” says Max.

But on the first run of the first day, Max was trying to stop to avoid a steep mogul field, overcorrected, fell forward, and landed awkwardly on his shoulder and neck. By the time he stopped in a heap at the bottom of the hill, his skis were gone. And so was the feeling in his legs.

It never returned.

He spent 70 days at University Hospital in Salt Lake City, where they fused his vertebrae, put him through rehab and outfitted him in a wheelchair.

How would he handle life as a paraplegic? Max gave an early indication not long into his hospital stay when he asked his parents, Max and Amber, to bring him his golf clubs.

He cleared off a patch of snow in a little seating area outside the hospital and, while seated in his chair, started to chip and putt.

“I wondered how it would feel,” says Max, “and I found out I still had that feeling.”

Not long after leaving the hospital, he talked his dad into taking him to a golf course. They chose a course in Roy that didn’t get much play. With his dad pushing his wheelchair, Max swung with one hand and made double bogey on the first hole. On the second hole, he made par.

This was different, but it was still golf, and he could do it.

The world opened back up. As Max embraced his new life, life embraced him right back. His positive attitude proved to be infectious. In no time, neighbors, friends, family and members of his Latter-day Saint ward came together to render Max and Amber’s house completely handicap accessible.

And on the golf front, a man in Salt Lake City, Ben Hulin, offered to let Max try out his electric golf cart that allows a golfer who has lost the use of his legs to come to a vertical position and swing a golf club.

Soon after that, Max saw on the internet an announcement from the USGA — golf’s governing body in America — that it was about to hold its first-ever U.S. Adaptive Open in the summer of 2022.

Max couldn’t play in the first one, because he was still rehabbing, but he could play in the second one in 2023, and that gave him a new golf goal to set his sights on.

We make our way to the Valley View driving range to finish our interview. Max drives his Vertacat cart to the tee, dumps out a bucket of range balls and begins his practice routine. His swing is all arms, of course, but it remains a solid, technically sound golf swing full of power. Since the accident, Max’s upper body has only gotten stronger. He might not drive the ball 300-plus yards like he once did, but he’s consistently at 230 yards.

After hitting a variety of shots with uncanny accuracy, he eventually comes back to the question about rewriting history.

If he could return to Feb. 19, 2022, what would he do?

“You know,” he says, “I don’t think I’d change anything if I went back. I think I’d still have the accident, because it’s made me grow so much as a person. Before, I was just focused on golf, and nothing else really. I wasn’t as close with my family, I was still close but not as close as I am now, and I didn’t have the perspective that I now have that everything’s going to be OK after a bad accident or a trial that happens in your life. I didn’t see that before, because nothing bad happened to me. I’m not saying everyone needs to go through a life-challenging experience to learn that, but I’ve been able to learn that, and I’ve been able to learn a lot about the goodness of people.”

He pauses before teeing up another ball.

“I’m out here right now hitting golf balls,” he says, smiling. “So I really can’t complain about anything.”