GOLF ODYSSEY : Playing four holes with blind golfer William Pease

ST. JOHNS – William “Bill”  Pease walked into the tee box and pushed his white peg into the ground, centering his ball almost perfectly between the stone tees. He stood up and stepped back.

His son Neal stepped forward and walked a few paces ahead of the tee box, aligning himself between Bill and the pin, which is 385 yards away on the par-4 first hole at Slammer & Squire golf course.

“Is that the line?” Bill said.

“Yeah,” said Neal, sauntering back to his original position behind his father.

“If I go a little left, is that OK?”

“Yeah,” Neal assented.

Bill walked up to the ball and placed his driver down next to it.

“A little right of that,” Neal said. Bill repositioned. “Yeah, that’s perfect.”

Bill swung back and smacked his drive deep into the fairway.

“Yeah, that’ll work,” Neal said. “Nice. That’s like a two-yard cut.”

“Where’s it at?”

“Rolling forever, down the center of the fairway,” Neal said.

This is the typical dialogue between a blind golfer and his “coach,” or a person who assists a blind golfer in addressing the ball and with alignment prior to the stroke.

Blind golf is unique because it is a team sport. Golfers can’t play unless they have someone who tells them if they’re pulling a sand wedge or 7-iron out of their bag. They need someone to tell them if the ball is teed correctly, their distance and direction and much more information.

Bill, a local blind golfer, calls coaches “angels,” and the “heroes” of the sport.

“I can’t even imagine playing with sight anymore,” Bill said. “It’s just so great. I don’t know what I would be like on the golf course playing alone anymore.”

Neal, Nick and Casey – Bill’s three sons – are usually his coaches. The last time Bill and Nick teamed up, they won a U.S. Open Blind Golf title.

Nick and Bill are competing this week at the United States Golf Association’s inaugural U.S. Adaptive Open in Pinehurst, N.C.

The Adaptive Open is a competition for disabled golfers to showcase their abilities. It’s also a stage for people with disabilities to demonstrate “disabled” doesn’t have to mean incapable.

Pease is living proof of that message. He and his family are golf ambassadors who work diligently to educate local, national and international communities about blind golf and connect those communities through their activism.

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Holes 1 and 2: The Coach

Somewhere between the first and second holes, Bill encouraged a rookie to coach him.

“A little to the right,” I said, “Yep – nope! Wait. Come back a little.. You got it. No! Hold on!”

It was nerve-wracking.

Neal intervened and rescued his father. Bill parred the first and second holes.

Bill’s friend Paul Stokes doesn’t recall being so flustered the first time he coached Bill. In fact, he felt comfortable. He and Bill became good friends by their third outing together.

Blind golfers enamor Stokes.

“If you golf, you’ll just be like ‘Man, I need to put down my clubs,’ ” Stokes said of watching blind golfers. “It’s just so inspiring.”

Stokes is a proud sponsor of the U.S. Blind Golf Association, a nonprofit established in 1953 for the purpose of encouraging and enhancing opportunities for blind and visually impaired golfers to compete in the game of golf.

Since the inception of USBGA’s Junior Golf program in 1992, over 5,000 children and adults have been introduced to blind and vision-impaired golf.

The Pease family members do their part in spreading the joy of blind golf through their website, Florida Blind Golf, and hosting local clinics and tournaments.

Bill’s friend Mike Salik found out about USBGA through the Pease family when he met them in 2020. Salik also sponsors and coaches blind golf tournaments.

Salik said it’s “extremely satisfying” to help blind athletes be a part of golf. He has grown and learned about himself from the experience, he said. Salik added golf exposure is “the most important thing we can do” because it’s so similar to life.

“You’re going to have good holes and bad holes,” Salik reasoned. “You’re going to have good days and bad days. It’s about what you do after the bad hole.”

Hole 3: Birdie

Bill was in a good rhythm by the third hole.

“Maybe we need to surround you with cameras when we go up to Pinehurst,” said Neal, impressed with Bill’s play thus far.

Bill had already made it to the green with two strokes, and was ready to make some magic happen at the four-4 hole.

Before getting to the green, he turned and said  “When I win, we win together,” referring to himself and Neal or any of his coaches.  “This is a team sport.” He then readied for his shot.

Neal stood on the higher side of the pin and told Bill, who was about 20 yards away, to aim at his feet.

Bill heeded his coaches guidance and aimed at Neal’s gray sneakers. He tapped the ball lightly and followed it as closely as he could as it curved towards the pin and into the hole.

Neal shook his head and smiled. “Birdie.”

———

Bill has Stargardt disease, a rare genetic eye disease that happens when fatty material builds up on the macula — the small part of the retina needed for sharp, central vision. Central vision is the most important part of a person's vision and is used to drive, see pictures or faces. Good central vision also allows a person to see shapes, colors  and details clearly and sharply.

Vision loss from Stargardt disease usually begins during childhood, but some people start to lose vision during adulthood.

Bill’s sight gradually began to worsen during his 40s. He’s in his 60’s now and his vision is about 20/800.

Eventually, he couldn’t drive, read the paper or his own handwriting. He had to put his face on the television to see anything and he could no longer read music, a subject he had taught for over 30 years.

Bill felt helpless because he couldn’t do the many of the simple things people take for granted, he said, like go to the store or make his own food.

His wife, three sons and daughter, Madison, began helping him with those simple things, which made their family closer. The children moved to Florida after they finished college, strengthening their bond even more. Bill's visual impairment has sort of become the “the glue that holds the family together,” he said.

It has never never been a burden for the family, Nick said.

“He’s always positive,” said Nick, the youngest of the three boys. “He’s never made it seem like it’s this nagging illness. It shows you like, ‘What are you complaining about?’ You can complain your whole life that you’re blind or you can get stuff done and be happy it.”

Bill is happy he found golf again, which he started playing in his 30s when he could see much clearer. His children inspired him to start playing because they were all athletes.

Neal became fanatic about golf at about seven or eight years old and he would play with Bill often when the family lived in Charlottesville, Virginia.

As Bill’s vision slowly worsened, Neal began to help him play golf. The two formed a formidable bond, which was obvious during the outing.

“None of this would be possible without my family,” Bill said. “If you walked a day in my shoes, you would say you have the best life ever. You’d want to trade places with me but you can’t, buddy. Sorry.”

Bill lost one of his senses yet strengthened his family. A negative that had a positive impact.

Hole 4: Golfing, blindly

“You ready?” Bill asked me. “OK. Close your eyes and come up.”

Neal put my arm on his shoulder and led me up to the tee box.

We made it without any missteps. He handed me the club and coached me on how to swing it.

After some practice,  he gave me the go.

First swing: Air

Second swing: Connection

“Not bad,” Neal said, ever positive. I had survived, somewhat, the blind golf test. That alone was worth being proud of.

The Pease family makes it a point to teach the game of golf and make it accessible to local, national and international communities. They host tournaments that attract golfers from the United States and other countries around the world.

They recently started hosting clinics to teach students golf at the Florida School for the Deaf and Blind golf.

They’ve hosted two clinics, so far. FSDB Athletic Director Donna Johnson had to scrounge together 15 hesitant students for the first clinic. By the second clinic, she had to cap the number of students who could attend.

“Everybody wanted to go,” Johnson said. “I could’ve taken over 50 kids.”

“Everyone to this day still talks about the camp,” she added.

Johnson said one of the students, who was completely blind,  said it was “the best time of her life.”

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It’s not as easy for the blind and visually impaired students to pick up sports like the Deaf students. FSDB and Johnson, however, still encourage all students to try out for any sport they’d like as long as they feel comfortable playing it. She wants all of the students to do things they may not ever get to do in their lives at FSDB.

Johnson said she has had blind athletes who ran cross country, played middle school basketball and swam on the swim team.

Johnson said she is open to adding a golf team to the school's athletic program, which is Bill’s dream, but acknowledged the common athletic logistics like food and transportation make it difficult.

What’s certain is the Peases have created buzz at FSDB. The students and Johnson want more clinics.

What made the clinics resonate with the students is that their instructors were completely blind.

That wasn’t an accident. Bill is all about the blind community connecting. He loves meeting other people with Stargardt or who are blind so they can trade their joys and pains.

Golf has helped him do that and so much more.

“It’s given me something to be excited about,” Bill said. “It’s a lonely time that you go through. When you stop working after 33 years, your life just stops. Golf has really been something that has kept me motivated.”

To Pinehurst

After a par, par, birdie and bogey because of a lost ball – Bill looked ready for Pinehurst, where they're facing worldwide competition.

Yet, he is not as worried about the field. The number No. 2 ranked blind golfer in the world likes his chances.

Win or lose, however,  Bill kept the tournament in perspective.

“Having success in blind golf, you’re not going to make a million dollars,” he said. “You’re not going to win a green jacket at the Masters. You’re not going to make money. It’s not about the money. I’m rich. I’m not rich financially. I’m rich in life. I’ve got everything a person could ever want."

“I’m living the dream, man.”

This article originally appeared on St. Augustine Record: Golf: Local blind golfer William Pease offers peek inside blind golf