-: With determination
and creative thinking, we can find ways
to do the things we love, even those
that seem inherently visual.
In this episode, Hadley members, Judy Messina
and Jan Ober, join us to discuss golfing with vision loss.
I'm Ricky Enger and this is Hadley Presents.
Welcome to the show, Jan Judy, so glad to have you.
Well, thank you for having us.
-: Yeah, it's very exciting to be here with you.
-: I am delighted to have you both.
And Judy and I have spoken a couple of times and Jan
and I are just getting to know each other.
But interestingly enough, Judy
and Jan connected
with each other when we invited them to do this podcast.
So they've had a chance to chat about golf even
before this podcast, which I think is awesome.
So before we get into talking about
your stories
and some of just the logistics of golfing with vision loss,
I want to get some quick introductions,
just letting people know who you are, a bit about you.
So I think we will start with Jan.
-: Okay. My name is Jan Ober. I live in Salem, Oregon.
However, I was born and raised in Rochester, Minnesota.
I went to college at Iowa State
and got a home economics degree.
My husband, we moved to Oregon as an adventure
and 52 years later we're still here.
We had no job, no place to live, just our dog
and our U-Haul trailer and away we went.
We downsized five years ago when we moved
to a golf community, a 55
and older community, which was the best decision
of our life to move here.
We've raised three daughters who are now all married,
live in three different states,
and we have eight grandchildren.
-: And Jan, as much as you're comfortable,
tell us about your vision loss.
-: Okay, so about nine years ago we bought a puppy
and the puppy was black with white face and white feet.
And I would take the little dog out at night
to do his business
and I, all of a sudden I couldn't see where he was.
I was thought I was looking right at him.
And when I turned my head to the side,
I could see his white feet
and his white face out of the corner of my eye.
And I thought, that is weird.
And I looked right at him and he disappeared.
So I went to the eye doctor
and was diagnosed with macular degeneration.
And so that was nine years ago.
And I had started golfing maybe five or six years
before that without a hint that I would have vision loss.
And it's just progressed slowly over the
first few years.
But in the last six to eight months,
it's degenerated quite a bit to
where now I have geographic atrophy
and I don't have very much central vision.
I gave up the car keys, I gave up sewing, which was harder
for me as a home ec person.
I like to do all the quilting
and make quilts for my grandkids.
And that was the most difficult.
And, but I was determined
that I wasn't gonna give up everything
and golf was one of those things I said,
I'm not gonna give up on it.
-: I love that. And especially living in a golfing community,
it was clearly important to you.
Judy, tell us a bit about you.
-: Yep. I'm Judy Messina. I live in Wiper Lake, Minnesota.
I am a wife and a mo mother of one son
and a grandma of two grandchildren.
And I had gone to college
and gotten a degree in social work years ago.
And as far as my vision loss,
I was diagnosed in elementary school
with Stargardt's disease.
And it took a while to figure that out
and I had much more vision in elementary school.
But it has continued to decline
and I've lost quite a bit in my older years at this point.
And so pretty much what I have is kind
of hand motion if you're doing it by the eye chart.
-: So Jan, you did not expect at all,
I think, to have any vision problems when you started
playing golf, that wasn't even on your radar, right?
-: That's right. And it should have been,
it should have been.
My sister who is 10 years older than me
has actually, she passed away three years ago,
but she had macular degeneration.
And I believe there is a genetic component to this.
And so I should have, it should have been on my radar,
but either I was in denial or just optimistic.
-: And Judy, I think your experience is a little different
because we know that Stargardt's is progressive,
but when you started playing golf,
did you kind of have the assumption
that your vision would stay at the level it
was when you started?
Or how did you approach that?
-: I didn't really consider it at the time, to be honest.
But yes, I was hopeful
that it wouldn't be too much different.
But when I first was golfing, as with my family
and I wanted to be able to be out
and be part of the social piece of it
and it, you know, I still always had
to have somebody line me up and help me out.
As time progressed.
Now I have found
that each time it declines a little bit more.
There's still, it seems to be some adjustments you have
to make when you're dealing with, you know, limited vision.
It could be a lighting concern.
So I've had to look at some of that kind of thing.
Like I use visor with a dark underside
'cause the white underside gives me trouble.
But it's a lot of lighting issues.
And like I say, every time you lose a little vision,
you definitely are finding yourself struggling a little bit
to readapt your game a little bit.
-: Yeah, and I think that's true for a lot of things.
As you go through that progressive vision loss, something
that you thought you'd learned
and figured out a way around, now suddenly you're having
to figure that out yet again.
So for both of you, you started to lose vision
and then things progressed a little more rapidly
for each of you.
And that can be a real challenge to adjust.
And I think for both of you, golfing became a thing
that you really appreciated doing.
So was there any point where you thought,
I'm just, I'm gonna have to give this up,
this isn't something I'm going to be able to do?
Or was that, you know, did you approach it differently
and think, I gotta figure this out,
Jan, we'll start with you.
-: Well, yes.
I came home one day last summer in tears
and I just told my husband, I said,
I am not gonna lose this.
I am not gonna give up
and there has to be something I can do.
We had just gone on a Mediterranean cruise
'cause I wanted to see sites
before I wouldn't be able to see them.
And so we're, we're on this cruise ship
and I'm listening to a Hadley podcast, well, while I'm
by the pool on this cruise ship and I am in tears
because I realized when I got home I'm gonna have
to give up my sewing, I'm gonna have to give up my car.
I can't hardly read.
You know, it's, all these things are just going away.
And it was, it was really difficult.
But the, the golfing,
because we live here in this community
with all these amazing women around me that golf,
it was something very important to not give it up,
to find a way to adapt there.
Everybody is so helpful to, you know, help me
when I golf with somebody.
I said, you have one job, your job is
to help me find my ball.
And everybody is, everybody helps.
They say, well your ball is on right
after the third shadow at about two o'clock.
And that gives me some perspective to know where
to walk and find my ball.
So I guess I just, it's a social thing.
It's the being outside in the fresh air sunshine. Yeah.
It's just something that I didn't wanna stop doing.
-: And Judy, what about you?
-: I did not wanna give it up either.
I definitely wanna be part of the social piece of it.
I kinda look at it as what are your goals?
My goal was to be able to go out and golf with other people
and have a good time not having the expectation
of being a great golfer, but to enjoy the game of golf.
And so as that progressed,
then I had heard about the United States Flying Golf
Association and I thought, okay, I contacted them
and I realized there's a whole lot of people
who are golfing who are blind.
And I did call a couple people
to get some ideas a little bit on some
of the questions I had and I joined the organization,
but I did not sign up for a tournament yet
because I felt I still needed more practice
before I jumped into that.
So I ended up finding locally
an adaptive golf team.
There was some places around here that have adaptive golf
and I thought, you know, there you can build your confidence
and that way you're not having people push you from behind.
'cause we're all in the same league
and we all have something that slows us down.
And from there then I've kind of
tried different things like doing best ball kinds of things
so that I can be out on the course
and two of us are hitting a ball
and we take the better ball on the next hit and everything
and we just keep moving along faster.
I've done times to make it easier
that I didn't keep score at first until I got
to the level that I'm at now.
But it's like, how can you make it fun and not be stressful
and then just enjoy the game.
-: I think that's so well said.
Because often no matter what it is
that we are figuring it out, we think, well I have
to be really good at this in order for it
to be a worthwhile pursuit.
And we just don't stop to think that isn't true.
If you're going out
and you are doing something that you enjoy,
I feel like you've already won.
And if you happen to become good at it,
then so much the better.
But that doesn't always have to be the focus
and it's easy to forget that.
-: That's exactly right.
It's not about being proficient at it,
it's about having fun.
And maybe next week you have a better score on whole number
seven then this week.
And so that's, you know,
you just look at any little progress that you can make.
-: Love that. So what we have talked about so far,
I think we've touched on a couple of things.
Like, Judy, you touched on some lighting things
and Jan, you've touched on some things practically in terms
of how you play golf,
but I know that there are people listening
who have been golfers
or are struggling with this right now,
or maybe they've never picked up a set of clubs
and it's something that intrigues them.
So let's get into that logistics piece of it then
and talk about some things that you do in order
to make this work for, for you.
So Jim, we'll start with you.
-: Well, number one is you, I can't golf by myself
'cause I couldn't find the ball.
Number two is to find a ball that is the color
that you can see the best for me, it's either white
or a neon yellow, sometimes a neon orange,
but like red balls, blue balls,
they just disappear in the grass.
I can't see them at all.
Number three, my husband taken my clubs
and he has used duct tape in little strips
and he's put them on the edge of the blade of the iron so
that I can see which direction that iron is supposed
to be shooting for.
He's put a, a big white dot on the center on the top
of my driver so I know where the middle
of my ball should hit.
My putter has a big white line going across it so
that I can have a better vision of the line
that my putter is gonna hit.
And putting a black line on your golf ball so
that when you're ready to put, you can line that up with
where the hole is.
The other thing is, recently I've had to have people tell me
where the hole is on the green from a distance.
I don't know if it's towards the back on the left
or where it is.
So I'll have people tell me it's on the left towards the
front and it will give me a better idea
of, of what I'm doing.
And also, lighting is so important.
It sometimes in the bright sunlight, you're,
you're making a shadow right on your ball.
And so I have to step away and kinda line it up
and then step back into my stance to hit the ball once I,
I can see it again because in the shadow it just, it's gone.
So those are some things that I've done.
It's been very helpful
to have all these silver marks on my clubs
and I thought it was pretty ingenious
for my husband to figure all that out.
-: Yeah, no kidding.
And that was something that the two
of you figured out just in the process of doing this.
So you didn't really have a resource that you looked to
for figuring some of this out.
It was just a bit of trial and error
and some creative thinking. Right,
-: Right.
Because he'd say, well, can't you see
how you're aiming your club right now?
And I'd go, no, I can't see the,
I can't see the bottom of the club.
It's in the grass. I can't see it.
So that's why he put, you know,
white duct tape along the edge
so then I can see where it is.
-: And for you, Judy, we were talking
before we started the recording
and we kind of talked about
how everyone's approach is going to be different,
everyone's going to have different ways that they do things
and things that work for them, things that don't.
Are Jan's ideas things that have worked for you?
Or do you have a totally different method of doing this?
-: I have a totally different method
because I have less vision
and so there's nothing visual
that will help me if we mark something on my club
to see lines or anything like that.
I can't see my ball on the tee.
So first of all, on the golf grips I try
and find grips that at least Tactually help me to know how
to hold it so that the club
face goes the way it's supposed to.
I haven't marked mine with Brill,
but I'm gonna mark my clubs with Brill
so I know which club I'm picking up.
At this point I have, you know, obviously I vote, I golf
with a coach all the time.
Most people in the United States playing
golf have to have a coach.
'cause most of us need a coach.
And so that person is lining you up in the direction of
where you need to have your ball go.
And my husband happens to be my coach.
I've got a couple friends
who have coached a little bit as well.
My son is coached a bit.
So no matter when you're out there golfing
or at a tournament, that person is just as much a part
of your team as you are.
You win, you win it as a team when you're coaching.
And so I spend a tremendous amount of time
practicing at the driving range or putting
and all that kind of stuff and getting a sense of, okay,
if I put, am I gonna be putting,
or even when I do a chip shot,
am I gonna go like from my ankle and then in,
or am I gonna go further up to my knee
or that kind of stuff just to get a sense of
how far back I have to come with my club
and also the tempo of that.
And then we'll practice when I first started putting,
we'd start at three feet out and then we'd keep moving out
and out and out on the putting range to do all that.
Like I say, you can't expect to get it all figured out.
Luckily, I, I always say I can have fun.
I can't get upset because I'm not good enough
to get upset at my jeans.
I, but I am good enough to have a good time,
even if I have a bad day of golf,
I can at least enjoy the people I'm with.
And I will meet up with, I've got a friend here
who is totally blind
and on the board for the United States Playing Golf
Association in Minnesota.
And we will meet, we about 90 miles,
we'll each go each way mid.
We meet halfway with our coaches
and we'll golf from time to time
just to get the practice in.
But it's been so much fun to meet so many people.
I love just being with people
and being out on those beautiful courses.
-: And it sounds like for both of you,
there hasn't been the, you know, people are going
to be unkind to me
or people are going to be impatient with me.
Maybe that has come up,
but just listening to your stories, it seems that by
and large people have been really kind and and helpful
and invested in your having a good time as well. Right?
-: That is exactly right.
People are willing to help, they're happy to help. It seems.
This place where we live, we play cornhole and my husband
and I won the cornhole tournament last week
because I can see the black hole on the whiteboard.
So a lot of it is, you know, you've done it a while,
you kind of know how to swing.
But if you were a brand new person, I would just
find somebody, you know, to help you learn either a pro
or a friend who's who golfs
and get some easy lessons going
and then find a place where they're not intimidating.
I wouldn't wanna be in a club
where they were really proficient
and everybody was out to beat everybody else.
We don't care here, we, that's one of the things we say,
we care what your score is.
We're out here to have fun and be together
and get some vitamin D, you know, so yeah.
-: So, you know, I would say the first hole is
always concerning for everybody.
It's uncomfortable for if you're sighted or not.
Nobody likes study on the first hole,
but if a blind golfer hasn't had enough experience at all
ahead of time practicing it can slow up the golf course.
And sometimes people will say something about that.
So I would say, you wanna make sure you've had a chance
before your first time out on the course.
You don't wanna be out there first learning it on the course
and, and otherwise, like I say, if you did a best ball
or if you think you're slowing things up, then skip a hole
and you know, if you had to, well in the beginning stages.
But otherwise, no.
People in general, if they know,
they're usually very kind about it.
And I will also check
and see when is a slower time of the day to get on a course?
-: That's a great idea. Yeah.
If you are in a situation where
you don't know who else is on the course.
So if you're not in a golfing community like Jan,
where the vibe there is, hey, we're all in it to have fun.
If you are uncertain about that,
then doing those little things like, hey, when's it slow?
Or making sure you're practicing ahead
of time makes a lot of sense.
-: Oh, we have a time at two o'clock in the summer
that if you are a beginning golfer
or just, we call it a casual golfer, you know,
maybe you're just learning
or you know that you're gonna slow people up, you know,
then you go out at two o'clock with people like you and,
and nobody else is gonna play for a while.
So you're, nobody's pushing you from behind.
-: That's ideal. Yeah.
The other thing too is if having a routine, I mean, knowing
what your routine is when you get up to that tea
and so forth, like I use a tee that is the same size,
it goes into the ground, the same height every time.
But I always, before I'll even put a ball on that tee,
I hit the tee with my club so I can get a sense of where
that club is gonna hit when I bring it down.
I do the same thing and do a practice shot on the ground
each time too, because I wanna know,
am I gonna come through clean or not?
-: Wow, this is all really incredible information
and I know it's going to be so helpful for people
who have golfed before
and can put some of these ideas into practice.
And I also think it's very encouraging for people
who haven't golfed before
and are thinking about, you know, I always looked forward
to learning golf when I retired,
or this was something I was going to spend time doing
with my kids, or whatever it is.
And the fact that it is possible to do that is, again,
so encouraging
and just hearing how much the two of you enjoy it is great.
Are there any final things that we didn't mention,
whether it is a resource or an approach
or anything about adjustment
and doing things a little differently?
Anything that you want people listening to know?
Jan, we'll start with you.
-: Well, I was thinking about when I first started to play,
I was not a golfer.
My husband was the golfer in our family,
but someone approached me at church one day
and said, Hey, would you like to start playing golf with us?
We, we play every Thursday.
And, and then afterwards we'd go out to lunch
and I think she had me at lunch right there.
So, and it was always, for me, it was like,
I don't wanna spend the money.
I thought golf was kind of expensive
and I'd rather buy a new pair
of shoes or something with that.
So, but she said, oh no, we have coupons, we have coupons
and it's a, it's a short course,
it's only $9 and then we go to lunch.
I'm like, okay, I'll do it.
And it was like every Thursday we would have this time.
And it was my husband gave me some lessons, got some clubs.
It's important to have clubs that fit you right.
They're not too short or too long.
So got some inexpensive clubs
and I think, you know, if somebody isn't a golfer
or they're, they're looking at like in the future, be
that initiator, like the woman that came up to me,
I wasn't a golfer, but she just initiated it.
And maybe you could be the initiator for someone else.
We have women here at our course
that are well into their eighties
that are playing all the time.
The man across the street is 95. He plays every day.
So it's something you can continue
to do well into your seventies
and eighties or even nineties.
-: Excellent. And Judy, how about you?
-: Well, I would say first of all with the social media
and stuff that we have out there, there are a number,
a number of YouTube things on blind golf.
And so if anybody's wondering, you can,
you can pull up a number of things that give suggestions on
how people do it or how coaches coach, I think
that would be an excellent resource.
United States playing Golf Association is a great resource.
I knew I had my goal.
My one dream is one day to do a tournament.
I never thought I'd do it.
And it was thanks to my friend here, Kurt,
who called me one Sunday.
He says, you know, you've been signed up
for United States playing golf,
but you haven't done a tournament.
Well, for some reason he caught me on a
weak moment or something.
And so I did a tournament that he was, he was hosting
and it was so much fun.
I did another one that he had,
I ended up being a guiding eyes for a couple
of their tournaments and then last year I ended up helping,
we had the nationals here in Minnesota.
So, you know, if it's a dream, go after it and,
and whatever it is, if it's golf or whatever, just pursue it
and do what it takes to have a good time.
United States blind Golf has one comment.
They always say, you don't have to see it to tee it. So,
-: Oh, excellent.
There you go. It's a great tagline. Well,
this has been amazing.
I've learned about golf
and I've loved hearing both your stories
and again, your, for doing this, just getting out there
and having a good time.
I appreciate both of you for stopping by sharing all
of your tips and tricks
and it's been so much fun. Thank you again.
-: Thank you, Ricky. It's been fun to do this with you.
-: Yeah, what a privilege. Thank you so much.
Got something to say?
Share your thoughts about this episode of Hadley Presents,
or make suggestions for future episodes.
We'd love to hear from you.
Send us an email at podcast@hadleyhelps.org.
That's P-O-D-C-A-S-T
at HadleyHelps.org
or leave us a message at
847-784-2870.
Thanks for listening.