KEARNEY, Neb. (Greg Echlin, Flatwater Free Press) -- In Mandi Sedlak’s world, everything seems to fit. Even in her worst moments.

It’s true of her golf game, her husband, her career and the prosthetic leg connecting these threads. The Kearney native will be relying on the list’s last item when she competes in the U.S. Adaptive Open at Woodmont Country Club in Maryland July 7-9.

It will be the fourth time Sedlak, 45, will compete in the U.S. Golf Association-organized event, which is one of the sport’s major championships for physically and mentally impaired adults. All participants are required to go through a qualifying round. Sedlak won hers on May 27 in Texas. She hopes to continue that success in Maryland.

“My goal is to win, and it hasn’t shown in the first three years,” said Sedlak, noting that she has started out strong in each of the past three years before losing momentum in the later rounds. 

If successful, she’ll join an elite group to win the relatively new tournament, first held in 2022. But it won’t be her first win on a big stage.

Sedlak, who now lives on Johnson Lake south of Lexington, won two major events in 2016 — the World Disabled Golf Championship and the Women’s National Amputee Championship.

But Sedlak’s fit with the game of golf today involved a journey more circuitous than an everyday hacker trying to get around a hulking oak tree.

“I believe everything happens for a reason,” she said, “and I’ve only learned that from everything I’ve been through, I guess.”