Ace showing at Canadian Blind Golf Open in Simcoe

When his vision declined as a teenager, avid golfer Kiefer Jones thought he would never pick up his clubs again.

I was like, I can't play golf. I can't see my golf ball. I can't see where I'm going,'" Jones said on Friday at the Greens at Renton in Simcoe, where he was leading his division of the Canadian Blind Golf Open heading into the final day of play.

After a viral infection damaged his optic nerve, rendering him legally blind, Jones took a three-year hiatus from the sport he had grown up playing almost every day." But a friend finally convinced the Calgarian to get back on the links, offering to be Jones' eyes and track his shots in exchange for swing tips.

I wasn't used to playing golf with help," said Jones, who found that with some guidance and using his remaining peripheral vision, he could still find the fairway.

I could still play golf, I just had to change how I thought about playing golf," he said. I don't have to see my ball or my cart necessarily to make a good golf swing."

Many tournaments and titles followed, with Jones most notably winning the 2018 World Blind Golf Championships in Rome, Italy.

Like all visually impaired golfers, Jones plays with a coach who acts as his eyes on the course, describing the terrain and making sure he is square to the tee. At the national championship in Simcoe, that responsibility fell to coach Doug Clark, who said Jones far outclasses him as an athlete.

He's a true golfer while I'm a weekend golfer," Clark said. When you watch him swing, it's like a golf swing you'd see on TV."

Tournament organizer Hugh Montgomery of Simcoe tried in vain to keep up with Jones on the links.

We've paid Doug money to aim him at trees and stuff, but he just goes over trees," Montgomery said with a laugh.

Jones and Montgomery competed as B3 golfers, meaning they have up to 10 per cent of their vision. Golfers with up to five per cent of their eyesight compete as B2s, while profoundly blind" players are in the B1 division.

Everybody here has unique degrees of disability. That's why we have coaches," said Montgomery, vice-president of Ontario Visually Impaired Golfers, the charitable organization that sponsored the tournament, and a board member with Blind Golf Canada.

Like Jones, Montgomery still has some peripheral vision, but macular degeneration left him without central vision and prompted him to join the community of blind golfers in 2015.

Your goal is to improve yourself, but the nice thing about this is we all have the same challenge of vision," said Montgomery, who said playing a round with blind golfers comes with the same level of competition, camaraderie and smack talk that can be found on any golf course in the world.

Montgomery and his coach, Laurie Smith, worked together for decades and golfed at company tournaments before they joined forces on the blind golf circuit. Smith soon got the hang of following Montgomery's shots and guiding him to the ball.

And after the first tournament I just fell in love with all the people, because they're fabulous," she said.

Smith said her job is much easier than coaches of completely blind golfers, who work their butt off" positioning their golfers and leading them safely around the course.

I spent the day with a B1 (golfer) the other day, and it's a full-time job. I couldn't think of anything else," Smith said.

The 25th edition of the nationals, along with the Ontario Provincial Blind Golf Championship, brought 32 golfers to Simcoe last week. Players mainly hailed from across Canada with a handful from Australia, Northern Ireland and the United States.

With a blind golf organization in each province and a national championship that criss-crosses the country, Montgomery hopes the sport will continue to grow.

There's a lot of people that maybe played golf and then because of age-related degeneration, they don't think they can. So we're trying to educate people," he said.

Clark, who helped his old friend Montgomery organize the tournament, came away inspired.

It's fairly amazing that some of them, especially the profoundly blind golfers, they hit really well. They are scoring lower or as good as I can when I'm at my best," he said.

Someone like (Jones), I'll probably never shoot as well as he does. It's really impressive."

Jones encouraged anyone experiencing vision loss to give blind golf a shot.

Nobody's good at golf when they first start. So don't be discouraged when you come out and you're not good right away," he said.

It takes people a long time to get good at this game. So come out and try it, and keep practising."

J.P. Antonacci's reporting on Haldimand and Norfolk is funded by the Canadian government through its Local Journalism Initiative. jpantonacci@thespec.com