On her home golf course in Bloomingdale, Patti Valero is far removed from the night her life changed forever. It was 2009 and Valero was riding on her motorcycle when she was hit by a wrong-way drunk driver. Though she doesn't remember how it happened, Valero does remember waking up days later in a hospital. Her left leg had been amputated at the knee.
The accident nearly cost Valero her life and her job as a Hillsborough County firefighter, but she didn't let it overwhelm her.
"I was a bowler who was going to turn professional," Valero said. "Your weight leg, if you're right-handed, is your left foot." Unable to bowl, Valero picked up a set of golf clubs and began to take swing after swing.
"Golf gave me back what I lost," she said.
The rest, as they say, is history.
"I didn't turn pro, I've just won a lot of things," joked Valero.