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Professional golfer Ken Green, who overcame injuries from a motor vehicle accident last summer to return to golf, has won the Fairfield County Sports Commission's Chelsea Cohen Courage Award. Green, a Danbury native, will be honored at the commission's sixth annual Sports Night awards dinner at 6 p.m. Monday, Oct.18, at the Hyatt Regency Greenwich.
The Cohen Award is sponsored by the Forever Young Foundation, the charitable giving entity of Steve Young, a Greenwich native and NFL Hall of Famer. In 2006, the commission created the Chelsea Cohen Courage Award named after Cohen, a Norwalk High soccer star who was the Commission's first Courage Award recipient in 2005. She died in August 2006 from a rare form of cancer of the nervous system. The award recognizes the person in the sports community who has shown inspirational strength in battling life-altering obstacles.
In Green's name, Forever Young and the commission will make a donation of $2,000 to the Chelsea Cohen Fitness Academy.
Green's injuries led to the amputation of his lower right leg. In the June 2009 accident, his brother, girlfriend and dog were killed. After being fitted with a prosthetic leg, Green played his first competitive round of golf in March and recently played in Champions Tour events.
On the PGA Tour, Green was a five-time winner and was a member of the U.S. Ryder Cup team in 1989.
Previous winners include: James Hilaire of Stamford, a soccer goalie at the University of New Haven who suffered a traumatic head injury, 2009; Mike Myers-Keitt, a Norwalk native and Fairfield Prep graduate who attends Monmouth University on a basketball scholarship, 2008; John Tartaglio, a Milford resident and Fairfield University graduate who as a double amputee has competed in triathlons and road races, 2007; and Jason Maiella, a baseball player at Sacred Heart University, 2006.
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