The first difference at the Mount Kisco Country Club in Westchester County yesterday is what the golfers didn’t have.
Bob Andrews went blind in Vietnam. Mike Mercado lost his sight to glaucoma. Jim Baker is here because the diabetes that forced a kidney transplant also robbed him of his ability to see.
“Golf consumes a lot of my life,” said Baker, president of the United States Blind Golf Association. “That’s my deal, and I like it. And I’m a fairly decent golfer, too.”
The other difference yesterday at the Corcoran Cup, a gathering of the USBGA’s top 14 golfers, including Baker, is what they had beside them. A coach accompanied each player through yesterday’s round and served as a lifeline from first tee to 18th green.
Coaches are wives and grandsons and friends, but on every hole they become a combination compass-counselor-caddie. Yesterday, the coaches ushered each player from shot to shot. They paced distances, read putts, and gave clues about lies and wind conditions. They also offered consistent encouragement, precious for golfers attempting to concentrate on and hit a ball they can’t see.
Without that assistance, the golfer not only can’t play, he or she can barely function. And that responsibility brings both pride and pressure to these volunteers.
“There’s some frustration when he’s not playing as well as we know he can,” Baker’s coach Kyle Seeley said. “I feel like it’s my fault. When he hits a bad shot, I feel it, too.”
So it went over 18 holes yesterday, coaches preparing and golfers swinging and, like most afternoons on the course, everyone muttering curse words. But for every ground ball tee shot and chunked chip, there was Baker canning a 20-footer for bogey at the first or Walter Dietz recounting the story of his 1988 hole-in-one at Manakiki Golf Course near his Berea, Ohio, home.
The Corcoran, won by veteran Phil Blackwell with a round of 99, kicked off a two-day event that will benefit Guiding Eyes, a Yorktown Heights organization that breeds guide dogs, pairing more than 150 each year with blind people throughout the region. The human-dog bonding starts with a month-long development program at the Guiding Eyes complex.
Today’s corporate outing at Mount Kisco and Whippoorwill Country Club, the Guiding Eyes Charity Classic, is named for Ken Venturi, the former PGA Champion who helped plan the first event 27 years ago.
At the tournament, which will raise more than $250,000, guests can attempt a tee shot blindfolded. Sighted veterans of the activity say only then will golfers understand the obstacles blind golfers face and appreciate the faculties they have on the course.
“To put a blindfold on and have someone line you up and try to swing,” Guiding Eyes president Bill Badger said, “is a lot of fun. You really get an idea of what these guys go through every day.”