Every week, a group of adults with disabilities gathers on an indistinct patch of grass not far from Veterans Memorial Highway in Bohemia to do something they may not have otherwise had a chance to pursue: learn how to play golf.

“I’m getting very good at it," Erik Zarse proudly told Newsday after he swung a colorful golf club and sent a tennis ball downrange.

Zarse is one of about 150 people registered with the People’s Arc of Suffolk who participate in the nonprofit's golf clinic, one of the latest “adaptive” sport programs that have cropped up over the past decade with the goal of making sports accessible to people with a range of disabilities.

Participants take shots at targets such as hula hoops and are guided through golf basics by Special Olympics-certified coaches from the M

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