An inspirational story to share......
I stumbled upon this story about blind golf whilst browsing the internet. That was during my initial experience in using a screen reader software installed into my desktop computer, during the early days of recuperating from a bout of bacterial infection that resulted in my total blindness. What this assistive technology does is, it converts the text to speech, literally reading out aloud whatever is on the computer screen when I navigate around using the different keystrokes on the conventional keyboard.
I could remember vividly those challenging times, practically re-learning the many tasks that I had taken for granted when I was sighted. Re-learning computer skills was one of the most important task which I realised could get me to re-connect with the world, friends, etc. I had to endure several hours of frustrations, as even I had to re-learn touch typing on the keyboard, remembering the various screen reader keystrokes and keyboard layout too. Re-learning the computer was an arduous challenge but I was determined to `master' this new re-learned skill and had to spend many, many hours sitting in front of my computer typing continuously to re-gain and work the muscle memory in my fingers.
Golfing was the furthest thing from my mind then. I was glad that my sons, who knew then that I needed some form of exercise to stay fit, to help in my recuperation after going through those traumatic times, practically dragged me to the golf range to try to hit some balls. It was a disaster as I could not hit due to my blindness, loss of orientation and mobility.
I was glad that during one of my wild search on golfing for the blind, I managed to stumble upon Gerry Kelly's story (append below) that inspired me to get back into playing golf, a game which I enjoyed when I was well and sighted. It did not dawned on me that I would get to meet Gerry one day and to cap it, playing a round of golf with him at the historical Preswick St. Nicholas Golf course, Scotland. This happened on Tuesday, 26th April 2011. Thank you, Gerry and Mary! It was indeed a memorable experience.
More challenging times ahead!
Click link to read. The evolution of blind and visually impaired golf
I stumbled upon this story about blind golf whilst browsing the internet. That was during my initial experience in using a screen reader software installed into my desktop computer, during the early days of recuperating from a bout of bacterial infection that resulted in my total blindness. What this assistive technology does is, it converts the text to speech, literally reading out aloud whatever is on the computer screen when I navigate around using the different keystrokes on the conventional keyboard.
I could remember vividly those challenging times, practically re-learning the many tasks that I had taken for granted when I was sighted. Re-learning computer skills was one of the most important task which I realised could get me to re-connect with the world, friends, etc. I had to endure several hours of frustrations, as even I had to re-learn touch typing on the keyboard, remembering the various screen reader keystrokes and keyboard layout too. Re-learning the computer was an arduous challenge but I was determined to `master' this new re-learned skill and had to spend many, many hours sitting in front of my computer typing continuously to re-gain and work the muscle memory in my fingers.
Golfing was the furthest thing from my mind then. I was glad that my sons, who knew then that I needed some form of exercise to stay fit, to help in my recuperation after going through those traumatic times, practically dragged me to the golf range to try to hit some balls. It was a disaster as I could not hit due to my blindness, loss of orientation and mobility.
I was glad that during one of my wild search on golfing for the blind, I managed to stumble upon Gerry Kelly's story (append below) that inspired me to get back into playing golf, a game which I enjoyed when I was well and sighted. It did not dawned on me that I would get to meet Gerry one day and to cap it, playing a round of golf with him at the historical Preswick St. Nicholas Golf course, Scotland. This happened on Tuesday, 26th April 2011. Thank you, Gerry and Mary! It was indeed a memorable experience.
More challenging times ahead!
Click link to read. The evolution of blind and visually impaired golf
2 comments:
inspiring... to say the least.
Really good post!
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