Keeping your head down and eyes on the ball is sound advice for golfers. That is, if you can see that ball. On Wednesday, Ontario Blind Golf hosted a camp at Pine View Golf Course in Ottawa for visually impaired kids excited to learn the game. For 14-year-old Ollie Acosta-Pickering, it’s all about the feel of the club and the ball. “As a person with no vision, I normally use a lot of my sound and touch capabilities,” said Acosta-Pickering. “I’ve seen people golf before I went blind and I knew it was a lot of fun to do.” Acosta-Pickering says he lost his vision around the age of eight due to a rare type of blood cancer, ALCL lymphoma. But that didn’t stop him from pursuing his love of sports. “I decided that after I became blind, I would do all the sports I could just try and kind of hold on to my original life of doing all kinds of different things as a sighted person.” “I just love to play sports and just getting to try and feel throughout the sport, what it’s supposed to feel like. Once you get the good feeling of success, it can’t really go away and then you just want to keep doing it.” The golf camp was in collaboration with the Canadian National Institute for the Blind (CNIB), which aims to make sport more accessible for the visually impaired. Becky Dyck, program lead with the CNIB, says the organization works to set up three to four golf camps in July and August while also utilizing indoor simulators throughout the winter. “We want to make sure that kids have access to as many sports as possible, even though they may have various disabilities,” said Dyck. Verbal descriptions are important in aiding visually impaired golfers, but guides who also serve as caddies are key to a blind golfer’s success. Ottawa-based professional blind golfer and former multi-sport Paralympic athlete, Kevin Frost, helps coach the kids attending the camps, serving as their guide. “In blind golf, it’s by feel. We have a guide, so our guide will set up our ball and they’ll line us up, and then we continue through hitting the ball. It’s by feel, I learn by feel, my coaches teach me by feel,” Frost said. “When I hit the ball, I don’t see where it goes. I look back at my guide, and he says, ‘oh, in the fairway or it’s in the trees.’” The day wasn’t about getting the ball in the hole. Rather, Frost says it’s all about getting the club in the hands of new golfers who are learning about the sport for the first time. “They come out and they take a club and they hit a ball, they putt, and they chip. And then, we’re actually going on the course today to experience two holes, so they can know what a fairway is, they know what a green is, they know what a sand bunker is,” Frost said.
