Hello all,

I am rather curious as to whether there are any articles out there on the effects of new blindness in a player's eye on your game? How it effects a player in the long run, what are some suggestions for overcoming it, etc.

I was recently (tues morning getting off work) carjacked and pistolwhipped, blinding me in my left eye. It is very likely that this is permanent. Since then I have had one surgery (tues afternoon) and have got back on the course once (Sunday doubles, my partner carried me to a win, by the way Disc Golfers are AMAZING people).

That day I noticed a few things...

1. Early on in the round I noticed my drives flying out of my hand to the right of my intended target. This happened badly on the first four holes before I got the hang of it, and happened occasionally throughout the round a bit once I noted and tried to fix it. I'm curious as to whether or not this was merely a bad day for me, or if it is likely to be something regular where I will need to practice before every round to make the adjustment in my sight-lines? Note: the eye that I CAN see out of is my right eye, the same way my throws were off to.

2. My putting was actually spot-on, oddly enough... better than usual... was I merely just plain ON that day or is depth perception really less important to putting than some people might insist? Or is it just that the knowledge of being "off" naturally forced me to focus more?

3. How many blind jokes do you think an average player could get in per round at my expense so that I know when somebody has gone overboard? /msgboard/images/graemlins/smirk.gif


I'm actually in a good mood despite it all, and hoping to move up to Am1 by the start of winter as I had been planning anyway... But I was wondering if I could get somebody with a vision expertise to chime in on the issues that came to mind? Or maybe some fellow players that may be blind in one eye?


-Chris.

Wojy - it's CreemCheese...played second round of windy water, and the discontinued with you. Sorry, I don't really have any advice, but I just wanted to express my sympathy :(

hey chris, sorry to hear about your situation. we have a player in va who has had a degenerative condition in one eye over the last year or so. it does not seem to have affected his play very much. i will attempt to get you his contact info.

In 2000 my eyes began to bleed from the effects of diabetes, and drinking too much when I was younger. I had 14 laser surgeries in both eyes, then the right eye was cut out, gutted out, then put back in. I was very lucky to get back to 20.35 in both eyes. I lost some vision in the right eye, and it has waves in the eye that make things a little smaller because they fold under.

Given all that crap. I can't see the baskets beyond 300 ft. because they blend in with the background. I always ask the person I'm playing with where the basket is, and then I choose a route based on memory. Good form helps a lot, and having played over 20 years helps as well. Putting is a challenge, but it's getting better.

My biggest problem is I can't follow the disc flight once it gets out about 150 ft. into the horizon. Sometimes it's difficult to find the disc. Get some good friends to play with that can help. When my eye sight was 20.400 I was still out there throwing, don't let this stop you.

Very sorry to hear about what happened. Kudos on getting back to the course so quickly.

My brother is legally blind in one eye and has been for over 20 years. In the last year or so I have been taking him with throwing disc once and a while. Aside from his newness to the sport he plays pretty good. He plays ball golf and hunts too, so I'm sure you can overcome it. I was going to say putting should be the hardest part, but it sounds like you've got that taken care of. I doubt my brother will be able to add anything DG specific, but I'll ask him if there's anything in general that helps a person adapt to sports (he had to switch to shooting gun left handed).
Best of luck with everything. You're a testament to the addictiveness of disc golf.

I'm 20/200 in my left eye and maybe 20/40? in my right eye, so I can say that I think that just one good eye is not a big problem for DG. Putting should not be a problem at all.

Even if the pull right is caused because of only having visual info on that side, Id say your mind will correct it in a few rounds at most. One thing that you can do to improve your depth perception is to move perpendicular to your line or target. Object closer to you will "move" faster to you as you walk perpendicular to your line of sight. This helps me when im gauging pin distances and also when tracking a disc as it travels into shule. Id wear safety glasses with flip-up sunglass lenses too especially since at some point youll have to poke around for a disc and you dont want to get an injury in your good eye. At least the piece of s**t didnt hit you in your right eye as it would have created a real blind spot as you can only move your head/neck so much to keep a look at your target during drives. Thats all i can think of for now. Your in our prayers, bro!

Thanks for the sentiments guys... for anybody in the Northern Ohio area that wants to crack Pirate jokes with me, I'll be playing Parmalee's Rumble in the Jungle Saturday... and after my Monday surgery I'll be playing the Firelands Open in Norwalk the next weekend.


-Chris.