Golf Pro Ernie Els Reveals His Son Has Autism

Autism In The News
March 13, 2008

Life's not so easy for "The Big Easy."

Golf master Ernie Els recently showed up to pratice for the US Open with an Autism Speaks logo on his golf bag. This of course started the press asking questions. He revealed that his son Ben has autism and he wants to riase money to find a cure.

It's always interests me how putting a celebrity's face and story to a disorder helps to raise the public interest. With the increasing rise in the autistic population I'm sure more and more people will get to know children and parents dealing with autism in their own community. We tend to pay more attention to celebrities and it's more fashionable to talk about the plight of the famous over the water cooler. Whatever the initial fascination may be at least it helps to draw some attention and put autism out there for public awareness. See Ernie's story below.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/main.jhtml?xml=/sport/2008/03/11/sgels111.xml