Legally blind golfer, 87, records 14th career ace

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Del de Windt can't shoot his age anymore. Once a scratch golfer, he can barely break 100 these days.

Del de Windt

The thing is, de Windt, now 87, can't see. He has suffered from macular degeneration since 1997 and is now legally blind. When the golfing bug bites early in life, though, an old golfer still itches to play long after age and physical ailments creep in. So de Windt and his wife Mary continue to play golf seven days a week.

"I enjoy it," he said simply. "Some days I play very poorly. I used to break 90 periodically, now I am happy when I break 100, a number I'm fast approaching with my age.

"(I just remember) don't give up. Go out and do it. Do your best and you can have as much fun shooting 100 as you used to have shooting 70. It's just a matter of believing that you can play."

About three weeks ago, however, de Windt wasn't listening to his own advice. Nothing was going his way on the first eight holes at the Jupiter Island Club in Hobe Sound, Fla. As de Windt approached No. 9, he turned and spoke to Mary.

"I don't think I'll play this hole," he said. "I've played so poorly all day."

But Mary encouraged him not to give up. Since Del can't see more than a few feet in front of him, Mary placed the ball on the tee and lined him up for the shot. He then swung his "perfect club" -- a short-shafted club created to replace a 3-iron, 4-iron and 7-wood -- at a pin he couldn't see 149 yards away.

"I think it's going toward the green," she said.

"Wouldn't it be ironic if it went in?" Del replied sarcastically, knowing how he'd struggled from the very start of the round.

Neither Del nor his wife Mary could tell if it even landed on the green. When they walked up, they located Mary's ball about 15 feet from the hole. Del's was nowhere to be found. They spent several minutes trying to find it before Del thought to check in the cup. As Mary glanced down, she saw his golf ball resting in the hole.

Though he couldn't see the ball, the pin flag or the shot, Del had just recorded the 14th ace of his life.

"That was my third (hole-in-one) since I've been blind, since I completely don't see anything," he said. "It's all luck."

If it's all luck then de Windt must be on the golfing gods' good side. His first ace came in 1942 with his father, also a scratch golfer, at the Wyantenuck Country Club in Great Barrington, Mass. The luckiest, other than this one maybe, was a hole-in-one at the Wentworth Club in Surrey, England, a former Ryder Cup venue. At the time, de Windt had perfectly good eyesight. But Mother Nature had other ways to impair his vision.

"The fog was so thick we couldn't even see the end of the tee box," de Windt said. "I hit it and we got up there and we looked around for five minutes until somebody finally went over to play out the hole. And there was the ball in the cup.

"Sure, you have to be able to hit the ball but the fact that it goes in the hole is certainly luck."

While luck is a necessary ingredient, a dash of skill is also vital. De Windt has a big helping of both. For nearly 50 years he hovered between a 0-3 handicap.

He's also a professed golf lover. In addition to being the former Chief Executive Officer at Eaton Corporation -- he has been retired for over two decades -- de Windt served as the chairman of the PGA TOUR Policy Board from 1980-1993.

While on the Policy Board, he worked with Commissioner Deane Beman, PGA TOUR players and several independent directors to set TOUR policy. During his tenure, the TOUR developed insurance and retirement programs and began the network of Tournament Players Clubs throughout the country.

"The Commissioner was the guy responsible for most of those programs. We may have critiqued them but I give full credit to the tremendous progress on TOUR from when I went on the board in 1979 through my career there to Commissioner Beman," de Windt said.

Since he was a passionate golfer and golf fan, de Windt's position on the board meant he mixed work and play. Even now he remains a devoted follower of the PGA TOUR despite the fact that he can't watch it on television.

"I listen to them on television but I don't see them. Most of the announcers are very good in their descriptions and I can enjoy it," he said. "Not as much when I could see it -- but try it sometime. Shut your eyes and listen and you can visualize what is happening. Most of the announcers are good in their ability to carry the play."

Overcoming adversities on the golf course -- and in life -- is simple really. It all boils down to making the most of what life hands you.

For instance, as Bobby Jones neared the end of his life, a vicious, painful disease forced him into a wheelchair.

"One day years ago, when Jones was really suffering, one of his admirers came up to him and said, 'We all think it is magnificent the way you have been able to cope with this disease. How do you do it? No one ever hears you complain'," de Windt said.

"And (Jones) replied, 'It's a lesson I learned from golf: Play the ball as it lies. You play it where it is. You can complain, you can become very depressed and so forth, but you just have to recognize that you have to make the best of it. I think that's the important rule for handicapped people.

"You can be miserable or you can look at the future with the idea that there are ways that you can enjoy it despite of a handicap."

And de Windt knows exactly what Jones meant.