Justin Van Landuit battles FSHD, makes it back to golf course

Former Bureau Valley ace competes in U.S. Adaptive Open for golfers with disabilities

Justin "Tank" Van Landuit had his team with daughers Raynor (from left), Ryker and Rourke and his wife, Erin, to play in the U.S. Adaptive Open for golfers with disabilities at Woodmont Country Club in Rockville, Md.

Justin “Tank” Van Landuit was all about golf.

If Bureau Valley’s first state qualifier (1995) and only medalist wasn’t playing golf he was working on the golf course as superintendent. And if he wasn’t either playing or working in golf, he was thinking about it.

Then at age 33, he was diagnosed with Facioscapulohumeral Muscular Dystrophy (FSHD) and his golf career and life came crashing down.

Van Landuit said he “messed my back up” playing golf and while going through physical therapy it was discovered something was not right.

“The therapist wanted me to roll tennis balls up the wall. So as I’m trying to do it, she realizes that I can only do it about eye level. She’s like, ‘No, I want you to go all the way up.’ And I’m like, ‘I can’t. My arms don’t do that,’” he said.

“And so she started looking at my shoulders and how they were functioning while I was doing that task and she noticed that my shoulder blades were winging out instead of stabilizing against my back so my arms could go all the way up. So she had recommended that I go see an orthopedic.”

He was still in the middle of the golf season, but eventually saw an orthopedic at Rush Hospital in Chicago, who was one of the lead doctors when it came to FSHD.

“He kind of looked me over, had me do a couple couple things and kind of hinted that there’s a chance that I had FSHD,” he said. “But we ultimately had to go down the path of going to a neurologist and then likely getting a genetics test.”

Van Landuit, who turned 46 last week, went through an EMG, which he called “one of the most painful exams to go through, basically getting your nerves electrically shocked to see how your muscles react.” The neurologist recommended he take the genetic test and it came back positive for FSHD1.

The signs of FSHD were there at a young age.

“I had some back problems in high school that I had to sit out a little while in my senior year and saw a sports therapist here and there. People kind of noticed my arms would always hang to the front of my legs instead of the side of my legs. But nobody really ever kind of put two and two together.

“And then once I was diagnosed and had the ability to go research it, a lot of the symptoms that they say I could go back to think about and be like, ‘Wow, I was showing that in junior high by not being able to raise my hand in class.’”

It was quite a shock to a golfer who could send the little white ball down the fairway with ease and no longer could.

“It took awhile to process everything because I was very athletic all through my junior high and high school years, played golf in college, and never thought at any point that I would have something dropped on me that ultimately has no known outcome,” said Van Landuit, who gained his childhood nickname “Tank” for the way he crawled across the floor as a toddler.

“Everybody’s affected differently. Thirty percent of people end up in a mobility device. And some of the people that I talked to that are in mobility devices, they say they felt perfectly fine until they’re like 45, late 40s, and then all of a sudden, in like a couple years, they just lost all the strength from their legs and now they’re in a power chair.

“Those are the things that are always in the back of my head. Like, ‘OK where’s this going to go?’ Because as of right now there’s still no treatment.”

His biggest fear was that the gene would be passed on to his three daughters.

“There’s a 50% chance that my daughters carry the gene. So being a dad and wondering if one of your kids is affected with the same disease that you are is tough to kind of handle at times,” he said.

Van Landuit, who lived across from and got his start at the former Green River Country Club in Walnut mowing the course, ultimately resigned as superintendent of Briarwood Country Club in Deerfield in 2019 when FSHD was really starting to break him down.

“I got to the point where I couldn’t do some of the fun things that I got into the business to do because I just physically couldn’t do it. It wasn’t fun for me anymore, and it really got to me mentally,” Van Landuit said. “My wife could see me kind of going into a depression. And so we made the decision that I needed to step away for awhile and just kind of focus on getting back in shape or as good healthily as I could.”

He finally found some relief through postural rehabilitation therapy.

“Karen, my therapist, changed my life around in a matter of probably four months,” he said. “She said, ‘just do what I’m telling you to do and then I think we can get you in the right place.’”

He was able to make a golf trip with his buddies to Pinehurst Golf Resort in North Carolina, playing four rounds in a row, two of which he walked, and said he felt better coming out than when he went in.

“So it was one of those that the light bulb kind of clicked to where I felt that we were onto something that was working,” he said. “And I have been religious to it every day. I get up in the morning, doing stretches, doing therapy exercises to kind of get my day started, and it’s afforded me to kind of have a little more freedom than what I was used to.”

Justin "Tank" Van Landuit

Earlier this month, the former Storm and Parkland College golfer competed in the U.S. Adaptive Open for golfers with disabilities at Woodmont Country Club in Rockville, Md. While he failed to make the final cut - “my putter failed me”- shooting 77s on both days, he said it was a great experience.

“It was unlike anything else,” he said. “One, to see the limitations that people have and how much they enjoy the game and still play very well. I’ve met some awesome people. The one thing I found we all have in common is we all enjoy the game and we found an avenue that we can still play the game at a competitive level.”

The best part for Van Landuit was showing his three daughters that dad can still play golf.

“It was a fantastic time and for my wife and my three daughters to be out there and be able to watch me play gave me more pride than anything,” he said. “My older daughter (Rourke), she’s getting into golf now, and to have her come out and be able to see me play and now that we’ve been back, she’s really been excited about going to the range with me and going to hit balls. We practice together and play games and push each other.

“It was one of the things that I was afraid wasn’t going to happen. Was that this disease was going to take over me and I wasn’t going to have those moments.”

Van Landuit, and Rourke, who dad calls “a heck of a talent for being 9 years old,” are going to try to 3-peat as father and daughter 7-9 year old champions of their club in Chaska, Minn. this weekend.

Kevin Hieronymus has been the BCR Sports Editor since 1986. Contact him at khieronymus@bcrnews.com

Have a Question about this article?