Life on the fairways looks a little different for Meadowbrook golfer Phu Bla.
For one thing, most players aren’t champions. For another, most can see the pin.
Thi Nguyen is considered legally blind, with a severe vision impairment.
Despite her limited sight, she’s a cracker on the golf course and recently won the second annual World Golf Brisbane Open – a second year in a row.
Plenty of folks play a lifetime and never break par. Ms Nguyen makes it look easy.
And she does it with the help of her caddy and husband Phu, who is also a talented golfer.
In blind golf, players share a particularly strong bond with their caddies, who they rely solely on to determine direction and distance.
“She can see a little bit. But as soon as she hits the ball, she can’t see because it’s too far and too fast,” Mr Nguyen said.
“She is totally blind in her left eye, and only has little vision in her right eye.”
Last month’s Brisbane open proved a fierce competition, with Ms Nguyen, the defending champion in the low vision category, scoring 31 points and winning on a countback, which is a tie-breaker used by comparing players’ scores on the closing holes.
Ms Nguyen isn’t the first golfer in her family. In fact, she was the last one to pick up the sport.
She and her husband have two teenagers, a boy and a girl, who are also members at Meadowbrook.
“Both of my children are very talented,” Mr Nguyen said.
“[Ms Nguyen] started to hit a few balls when she came along to Meadowbrook Golf Club with me. And then the first time she saw the blind golf competitions, she said she wanted to do it for fun.”
“She was not really an outdoor person [before].”
World Blind Golf is a Queensland-based not for profit founded by blind golfers.
Although the concept was made to make the sport accessible for vision-impaired people, World Blind Golf CEO and founder Neil Herdegen said it was now open to all people living with disabilities.
“It started as a way to make golf inclusive, but has become about inclusion and integration,” he said.
“It is about getting people out of their loungeroom and included in the sport, but also integrating them into the club culture and environment.”
