A Calgary man who lost his sight when he was a teenager says that he isn’t letting his disability get in the way of the sport he’s loved since he was a baby.

Kiefer Jones says he was about 18 months old when he first picked up a golf club, took a swing and fell in love.

“I was probably about three when I picked up a normal one that was cut down to my size. It’s been pretty much my whole life, 27 years.”

Under his father’s tutelage, Kiefer learned everything there was to know about the sport.

“My brother’s a golfer too so our whole family has pretty much golfed our entire life.”

When Kiefer was 16, he was playing golf in Mexico when he noticed that something was wrong with his vision.

His brother Kalen was playing with him at the time and says that while doctors were unable to pinpoint exactly what happened, it came on quickly.

“It got to a certain point where he couldn’t see the chalkboard in class. They tried to battle it every way they could.”

Doctors told the family that it would be lucky if Kiefer regained his vision, but that wasn’t the case.

“I lost my central vision. I have pretty good peripheral vision still, which allows me to be mobile and still play sports,” he says.

Kiefer ended up taking a few years off from golfing and only returned to the game when he responded to a request from a friend.

“It wasn’t until a friend said ‘I’ll take you out golfing and I’ll watch your ball and tell you what it’s doing, help you read the greens and stuff like that if you help teach me to play golf.’ That’s how it kind of started.”

That friend, Tobyn Larsen, has played alongside Kiefer ever since, helping him be his eyes on the course and offering advice wherever he can.

Larsen says that he knows that suddenly losing your sight must be a shock.

“You think just one day you wake up and you’ve lost your vision. It’s probably a very humbling thing to have to go through.”

He adds that he admires Kiefer because of his resolve.

“Just to play this game again and decide that this is what you want to do and want to take it to the next level is definitely very amazing in its own sense.”

Kiefer says that playing blind golf is no different than playing a regular game of golf.

“I play hockey too and there’s guys with all sorts of different vision in blind hockey but for golf, it’s pretty important just to be consistent. You don’t necessarily have to see what your ball is doing if you know what it’s going to do.”

One thing that is different about blind golf is that the rewards are often so much sweeter, like when Kiefer hit a hole in one at the Winston Golf Club a few weeks ago.

“I hit an eight iron and the pin was kind of back left over the bunker and I was just going to be happy if it was anywhere on the green. I wasn’t really going flag-hunting but I just hit a nice eight iron and it was going at the flag.”

Larsen, who was watching the shot, says he knew it was in when the ball disappeared on the green.

“It takes one hop, bounces right a little bit, takes a little loop around the hole and disappeared,” Larsen said. “I couldn’t believe it, it’s the first time I’ve ever seen a hole in one on this golf course before.”

Kiefer says it was an exciting experience for him too.

“It was pretty exciting. I didn’t really believe it at first but when you get up here and pick it out of the hole, it sinks in.”

While he hasn’t gone professional with his golf career, Kiefer says that he plays quite often in Blind Golf Championship matches that end up taking him all over the world.

Kalen says his family has been working to raise money to help Kiefer participate in those as well.

“Mom and I try to do fundraising for him so that he can go on these trips that he wants to go on, that he should go on, that he deserves to go on. The whole family, whether they are directly involved or not, they’re super proud by the fact that he gets to do something he loves.”

Kiefer says that he intends to stick with golf for as long as he can.

“I golf six days a week. I don’t know what I would do if I wasn’t golfing to be honest. It’s a game I’ve played my whole life and it’s the game I plan to play until I can’t play anymore.”

This year, Kiefer is sponsored by Copper Pointe in Invermere and is going to the Nationals in Blind Golf in Nova Scotia and will also be competing at the World Championships in Italy in October.

(With files from Glenn Campbell)