Bold stroke to improve my view of the world...and my putting

I lost a dozen golf balls at Balsam Mountain Preserve's Arnold Palmer course, including one I thought I hit well off the par 4 8th tee. The shot to the fairway below was blind, in more ways than one.

   By tomorrow, I hope to see the world in an entirely different light. For the last year, sight in my left eye has gone from bad (about 20/50) to worst, 20/200. If I rub my right eye or close it, I am essentially blind, everything in a virtual fog thanks to cataracts that have marched across the lens of my eye. The Dutch scholar Erasmus thought that, "In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king," but I will be glad to give up the throne.
   If you are reading this, you have a 50% chance of developing cataracts by the age of 65. They may not require surgery, but if they do, your first self-diagnosis may come on the golf course. It did for me.
   I am classically near sighted, and because vision in my right eye has

If "In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king," take my throne.

remained almost perfect, I read without glasses. The addition of glasses permits me to drive a car, type this article on my laptop, and perform other activities at a distance beyond my nose. But things are different on the golf course where, between annual eye exams, I first noticed a problem.
The first hint was in ball flight. I was losing sight of all shots as the ball reached its maximum height. And if I was hitting tee shots toward a bright sky, or one that was the color of a Titleist, I lost sight of the ball immediately off the tee (especially on those rare occasions when I kept my head down). I tried polarizing sunglasses, but that didn't help and made focusing a camera lens with a polarizing filter an exercise in guesswork.
The game became expensive and frustrating when I played alone because if the ball didn't wind up in the fairway, I had no clue where it was. I relied on the kindness (and sharp eyesight) of others or I flew blind. Courses

I helped playing partners line up putts until the day one said, "It goes left? Are you nuts?"

with fairways hidden from view off the tee were especially challenging, and at the beautiful Balsam Mountain Preserve course in Waynesville, NC, where blind shots abound, I set a personal worst record of a dozen lost balls. Over just a few months, my average score went from 83 to just shy of 90. Of course, the handicap system algorithms take many rounds to catch up with reality, and my official handicap has risen only by a stroke, making me an easy mark for anyone bent on a wager.
I am a decent putter, but as my left eye betrayed me, so too did my putting. Oddly, measuring distance was no problem. My right eye compensated for the left in that regard. Reading breaks was an entirely different matter. I looked at putts from every conceivable angle, but from outside of 15 feet or so, I rarely gave a putt a chance to drop. When I realized I was pulling most of my putts left -- in the direction of my bad eye -- I tried lining the putts up with my bad eye shut. That caused me to push most putts right. A few times I forgot myself and offered advice to a playing partner, until the day one responded, "It goes left? Are you nuts?"
Today I get a new, implanted lens in my left eye which, if all goes well, will give me the ability to toss away the glasses. I am trying out a contact lens in my right eye; combined with my new left eye, I am hoping for near-perfect distant vision. The test will come on the golf course next week, and I will report results here. If I don't break 85, I am asking the eye surgeon for my money back.

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Wednesday, 20 May 2009 04:24

Last Updated on Wednesday, 20 May 2009 09:19

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