Julie Moroney - Representing Canadian Women in Blind Golf

Announcer:
Tee up, it's time for the Blind Golf Canada podcast.

Gerry Nelson:
Hey everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Blind Golf Canada podcast. I'm your host, Gerry Nelson. He's your other host, Darren Douma. How you doing, buddy?

Darren Douma:
Great, Gerry, thanks. How about yourself?

Gerry Nelson:
Good. Good. Golf season is nearly here. I'm leaving on Friday for the States. And you are leaving to South Africa, when?

Darren Douma:
On Monday. So we're both getting pretty excited.

Gerry Nelson:
Okay. So it's right around the corner and, yes, we are getting very excited.
Hey, before we bring our guests in and introduce them, I want to send a shout-out to a lady over in Austria by the name of Karin Becker. And Karin is a lady golfer from Austria, a blind lady golfer. She's also on the IBGA board of directors. But I was speaking with Karin by telephone the other evening and she was saying that she was listening to the Blind Golf Canada podcast on the YouTube channel on her computer. So I thought right on, we now have listeners in Austria, as well as of course Canada, North America, Costa Rica, England, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Australia. The podcast is getting out there, it's getting around. So I was pretty happy when Karin said that she was listening to it as well.

Darren Douma:
It's great other people want to listen to us, Gerry.

Gerry Nelson:
Yeah. So as I said, I'm Gerry, he's Darren. We've got Mark behind the scenes who always makes us look good and sound good. Thank you Mark. And it is our absolute pleasure to introduce our guests today, Pierce and Julie Moroni. Welcome to the show, guys.

Julie:
Thank you Gerry and Darren.

Pierce:
Thanks, Gerry. It's our pleasure doing this.

Gerry Nelson:
Good, good. So tell us a little bit about Pierce and Julie, are you both from Ireland?

Julie:
No, I'm a Manitoba girl. I was born and raised on a farm in southwestern Manitoba. We moved to Victoria BC in '73 and I started university in '74. And lo and behold, there was an Irishman in 1975 who came over from Ireland to do postgraduate work. And that's where I met Pierce and that's where our life, our love affair, began.

Gerry Nelson:
Awesome. So Pierce, what year did you come to Canada to stay?

Pierce:
So what happened was, Gerry, we got married in '77 and I got a job in Ireland. So we stayed in Ireland for approximately 40 years, raised our children there and I was getting close to retiring. I mean, I still worked up until OVID times, I worked part-time, but in 2012 I kind of retired, semi-retired. So we said we'd come to Victoria because Julie's mother was quite elderly and give her some time before she moved on to the next life. I came in 2012, but in between times I'd been going back and forth.

Gerry Nelson:
I was going to say, you tend to go back and forth quite a bit, do you not?

Pierce:
Yes, yes. We have a daughter and a grandson in Dublin. Yeah. And I was also working, I say up till March 2020 when COVID came in, I used to do a bit of consulting in the environmental area.

Gerry Nelson:
Great, great. Julie, I have to know, Ireland or Canada?

Julie:
I fell in love with Ireland when I lived there. I really did. It's a wonderful country. But I've really settled back in Canada now. Funny for 40 years, I kept waiting for summer. I was an optimist, I kept waiting for summer to come and waiting for summer to come. So it's lovely having the Canadian summers at last, because they never really came in Ireland.

Gerry Nelson:
Right, right. Well, I have to say, when we were over there in 2019 for the Vision Cup, it's just a wonderful place to visit. And of course, we were at Portmarnock in Dublin, or just outside of Dublin rather. And oh, what a fabulous week it was. It was absolutely wonderful. So Julie, if I may, can you fill us in a little bit on your eye condition. What it is, when did you start having problems, noticing that something was wrong with your eyes, or have you always had your condition?

Julie:
No, it was in 2008 that I noticed there was something going wrong with my vision. And I used to be a tennis player and we lived in the southwest of Wexford and I had a good friend who was an optician down there. So I went down to Regina and I said, "There's something going on". And she was very coy. She said, "Oh, I think I'm just going to send you to a specialist". And that was the start of it. She was very, very...

Pierce:
Sensitive.

Julie:
Sensitive about what was happening. So I went to a specialist and that was the...

Gerry Nelson:
But she was a sensitive specialist?

Julie:
Yeah, yeah. Well she was an optician. Yes, she was an optician. And she referred me to a consultant and that was the start of it. And within my family, all my relatives kept saying, "Oh, where did this come from? We don't know of anything like that", but it turns out it is a genetic form of Stargardts, I think late onset Stargardts.

Gerry Nelson:
Were you a serious tennis player?

Julie:
Yes. Yeah, I loved... I actually, that was my probably preferred game. Always dabbled a bit in golf, but yeah, tennis would've been my preferred sport.

Gerry Nelson:
Would you say that... Oh, I'll save that question for later. Darren, you had one you wanted to ask.

Darren Douma:
Yeah, and the question that we always ask is how did you hear about Blind Golf and how long have you been playing?

Julie:
Well, I'm going to leave this one to Pierce because he was the one who discovered it.

Pierce:
Well, I think Julie got in touch through the CNIB with a lady called Susan Flanagan. She's used to be with... I don't know where she is anymore, we haven't heard from her lately, but she was with BC Blind Sports. And she put Julie in touch with this Dragon Boat Racing crew where 50% of the crew were... I don't know if you guys are aware of Dragon Boat Racing, there's a crew of about 24, and 50% of the crew are blind or limited vision. So Julie got involved that in 2018 into the summer with them.
So Susan then mentioned that there was blind tennis and blind golf, and I'm sure she gave us Darren's email address, so I contacted Darren and he gave me a guy called Doug Stokley's number, and we called Doug. I think we played a round or two a golf with Doug and he assessed Julie for her handicap. And then we got in touch with Darren and signed up for the 2019 Western Canadians in Creston. So that's how it started with blind golf.

Darren Douma:
So you're going to be in your fourth year?

Julie:
Yes, unfortunately, COVID kind of scuppered a lot of stuff. I really enjoyed the westerns in the Kootenays. It was just a fantastic experience. And then boom, COVID the next year. But I'm dying to get back to some competitive golfing.

Gerry Nelson:
Darren, did you have another part to your question?

Darren Douma:
Yeah, I was just going to note that Susan Flanagan's still with BC Blind Sports, and the Dragon boating, we're actually going to feature that in June out in Vancouver for our BC Summer Sports days. So that's one of our features that we're all going to try, so I'm looking forward to that. And Susan will likely be out as well. The other part of the question was if you were involved in the golf, have you golfed previously and how long, if so, have you been golfing?

Julie:
Oh gosh, probably about 40 years. My dad was a golfer and we used to hit balls down the lane on the farm, so I probably always could hit a ball. But probably Pierce and I, when we would go on holidays in the early years, we would always take golf clubs and play a few golf courses. And of course, when the kids came along, that kind of slowed things down. And once the kids got bigger, I joined some clubs and played competitive golf before the vision started going. So yeah, I've had quite a bit of experience.

Gerry Nelson:
Yeah, good. I know you travel a lot back and forth to Ireland, as you said. Do you take vacations elsewhere?

Pierce:
Yeah, we've been pretty fortunate. We've been able to explore a lot of the world. I mean, Julie was into walking, she did Machu Picchu Trail and the Camino in Spain.

Julie:
Spain, Northern Spain.

Pierce:
And similarly, I'm a big rugby fan, Gerry, so I've gone to the last three World Cups. New Zealand, England, and Japan. And this year we're going to the World Cup in France, the Rugby World Cup. And we're also going to Italy for a bit of a cycling holiday. So I don't think Julie will be doing much cycling. We're lucky.

Julie:
I'm carrying the suitcases.

Pierce:
Yeah.

Gerry Nelson:
Oh, that's great. That's fantastic.

Pierce:
Yeah, we're lucky. Yeah.

Gerry Nelson:
As husband and wife, how would you rate your player-guide relationship?

Pierce:
Excellent, Gerry. Excellent.

Gerry Nelson:
Now that you've been at it for a few years.

Julie:
Pierce is a wonderful...

Gerry Nelson:
I can attest to that because we played together, didn't we, at the Vision Cup?

Julie:
Well, yeah, no, Pierce...

Gerry Nelson:
We were paired to, and we...

Julie:
Yeah, he's a good...

Gerry Nelson:
We even got a point that day, so it was a good day. We'll talk about the Vision Cup a little further in the show.

Julie:
Pierce is a fantastic guide, probably because I've played so much golf with him over the last 45 years, he knows my game and he knows my weaknesses. He knows that I have a big phobia about water. I'm a magnet for water, and he would be really calm and steer me clear. And he very often doesn't tell me there might be water in the picture. Just so I don't...

Gerry Nelson:
One thing I noticed that day was definitely the communication, and I noticed at times, Julie, the nerves were kicking in a little bit and Pierce seemed to really be able to just steady you, settle you right down. And I thought you guys worked really well together, communicated very well together and it was a pleasure to be on your team and play with you that day, I have to say.

Julie:
Likewise.

Gerry Nelson:
You carried us, Julie.

Julie:
Likewise, Gerry. Sometimes I wish he would tell me a little bit more, but I think he has his reasons for not.

Gerry Nelson:
I find it works this way. They tell us when we don't want to know stuff, and they don't tell us when we do want to know stuff. You'd think by now they should be able to read our minds. Right, Darren?

Darren Douma:
That's right.

Gerry Nelson:
Your coach has to be able to read your mind. You have to communicate, there's no two ways about it, for sure. And you guys, I thought, do it very, very well.

Julie:
Yeah. We'd find sometimes a little bit of loggerheads on the putting green, that was the one part of the golf game I really loved was trying to read a putt. And when Pierce gets it wrong, I tend to blame him, which is really daft because...

Gerry Nelson:
So is that why you're at loggerheads, is over the reading?

Julie:
Well, of course, I mean there's...

Gerry Nelson:
Perhaps the distance or whatever.

Julie:
There's so many things that can go wrong with putting, you can turn your angle a little bit. But anyway, yeah, I tend to blame him when I miss it, but it's probably mostly my fault. But that's just a...

Darren Douma:
Got to blame somebody. You've been recently introduced to the women in golf, and Gerry just brought up Karin Becker earlier who for the International Blind Golf has been promoting Women in Golf, and I think you had a little bit of experience with that and are one of our ladies that represent Women in Golf. So just wanted to get a little bit of insight on how that's been going and how the experience has been.

Julie:
We basically stumbled across blind golf. I feel it's really, really important to get it out to as many people as possible, that there is such a thing. And I was a speaker on that, and it was lovely talking to some women. There was one lady in Nova Scotia, she said, "Oh my God, the Canadians are going to be there. I will go up and watch it". So it's just getting the word out that these events, this possibility, is there for people, and I'm doing my best.

Gerry Nelson:
Julie, we are so glad that you are a part of that, and I know the hard work that it takes. And Karin as well, Karin does a wonderful job representing Women in Golf. And let's face it, we need more lady golfers anywhere and everywhere, especially in blind golf. The ladies, unfortunately, are so underrepresented and it would be nice to have as many lady golfers as we do men, and that'll take a little while to get to that point. But it's nice to know that ladies like you and Karin are working on that, so that's good. We definitely need more ladies.

Julie:
Oh, absolutely, absolutely. And I try and emphasize that it is a sport that you can play into later life. I mean, tennis was given up a long, long time ago for me, but golf is something that you can do for a lot of years, and I'm completely inspired by the blind golfers, like you, Gerry, who have no sight at all. I think it's just fantastic.

Gerry Nelson:
It's great to be able to do it, for so many reasons now. Julie, the Vision Cup, we talked about it earlier and last September we had the joy and the pleasure of playing the Vision Cup at TPC Sawgrass, and North America actually won for the first time. But backing up a little bit, the Vision Cup committee had recently increased the ladies from one per team to a second lady on each team. And I don't know if you know this, Julie, or not, but you are the first lady Canadian blind golfer ever to play on a Vision Cup team.

Julie:
I actually wasn't aware of that, Gerry. I just feel so honoured. Yeah.

Gerry Nelson:
Yeah, you are the very first one. And Pierce too, feel free to join in. Give me your take on that week and the level of competition and the venue we were at. What are some general thoughts around the Vision Cup at Sawgrass?

Julie:
Probably a once in a lifetime experience, let alone playing on such a championship course. I mean, that was absolutely fantastic. A little intimidating, but fantastic. But the level of competition, it was just so much fun. I mean, Greg Cooper, the captain of the North American team, he was just fantastic at motivating us and getting there. And it was tough. I found the heat and the humidity pretty exhausting, but it was just so amazing. I mean, I kept going through these aha moments. I'm playing Sawgrass. It was once in a lifetime experience, definitely.

Gerry Nelson:
Yeah. What did you think Pierce?

Pierce:
Yeah, it was wonderful. We had a great week. I met a few friends of mine down there. I met you guys again. Always enjoy your company, Darren and Gerry, and a couple of the other lads and girls from the... I was amazed that it was so competitive. I couldn't believe some of the rivalries. I just was amazed at that. But it was beautiful at the end, everybody got together and that was it.

Gerry Nelson:
In four previous versions of the Vision Comp, North America had never won it. We tied one year, but because Team World had held the cup, the previous Vision Cup, they got to keep it or retain it. So I think we were pretty hungry going in this time. And yeah, it was a pretty amazing week, I have to say. And did you watch the Players Championship on TV last weekend?

Julie:
Unfortunately, we had planned to do it, but we got side sidelined by some other stuff.

Pierce:
Yeah, it's funny, Gerry, since the old LIV and the PGA split, I kind had lost a bit of interest in golf. I just think the professionals have become very greedy. And we had planned to watch it, I do this thing called the Players pool with a bunch of people, and after the second day I had Matt Fitzpatrick, he was plus 22, so I was out of the money immediately. I'd lost interest completely then, but I would've loved to see.
There's one thing I love, the little videos that came out at the end of the thing. Somebody sent one with you guys on it, and then Julie was on the 17th and she hammered the ball into the water and off the green on the far side, but she came back and sank the putt from about 30 feet. It was incredible putt, have the hole with Charlene.

Julie:
Charlene. Yeah.

Gerry Nelson:
Yeah. You did better than I did Julie, because I hammered mine in the water straight away and barely made the second shot from the drop area to get it onto the green, so good for you. Speaking of the professionals, my son Wyatt last weekend who was down there with me, and he played in the ProAm, in the scramble, on my team and we actually won it that day out of all the teams that were competing on that ProAm scramble. And he sent me a text and he says, "Dad, what do you and me and Scotty Scheffler have in common"? And I texted him back, I said, "What"? And he said, "We all won a tournament at Sawgrass". I thought that was was pretty cute. It's not quite the same level of competition, but the little bugger, he got closest to the pin, he headed to eight feet on that hole.

Pierce:
Oh, my God.

Gerry Nelson:
And won closest to the pin that day. It's something else. In two rounds, I still have yet to hit that green, so I have to go back.

Darren Douma:
I was just going to say, I watched the players all weekend and I was looking at that beautiful course and thinking of the opportunity you guys had to play, and I was so happy for you and envious and I just looked at the rough they were playing in and I was hoping to God, you guys didn't have that kind of rough the time that you were there in September because those guys were having a heck of a time out there. But great experience for you guys all.

Gerry Nelson:
Well, it was pretty wicked when we were there too, wasn't it, Julie?

Julie:
It was tough grass. It was tough grass, but I was a bit more concerned that there could be crocodiles in all that water.

Gerry Nelson:
Well, we had a scorekeeper one day that she told us she had been bit by a rattlesnake on that course. She was reaching into tall grass to get her ball, and then the split second she saw the head of the snake, it bit her in the arm and it was gone like it was never even there.

Julie:
I'm glad I didn't know that story.

Darren Douma:
I think you've pretty much covered this next question, but what's the overall experience been in blind golf so far?

Julie:
Well, when I started losing my sight, I kind of threw the golf clubs in the corner of the garage and I suggested to Pierce that he might put them up on Used Victoria and sell them. And when he came across blind golf, he said, let's go out and try this, because I was going out golfing with him and it was just getting so frustrating and part of it was I don't think Pierce realized the level of my vision loss and I was just getting very frustrated. But when I realized there was something to reach for, we went out and he became more help and I just can't wait to get out this summer and play some competitions. And it's lovely reuniting with the blind golfers and reconnecting with them every year. Can't wait.

Gerry Nelson:
It's really like a big family out there, isn't it?

Julie:
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It's just given me a new lease of life.

Darren Douma:
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, we are a big family out there. And so that brings me to my next question is, what's next for you in 2023 on the blind golf circuit?

Julie:
I'll get my secretary to answer that one.

Darren Douma:
The scheduler.

Julie:
The scheduler.

Pierce:
So the weather here hasn't been very amenable, very cold this year. So you've played once, have you?

Julie:
I played once.

Pierce:
Yeah. And then I think we're playing tomorrow, play nine holes tomorrow. So as regards blind golf, well we plan to do the disability outing in McCreary in Vancouver. Darren, I think you're organizing that, aren't you? In June?

Darren Douma:
I'm a part of it, yes. So that'll be great.

Pierce:
We'll be there for that. And then we go to Saskatchewan, Gerry's country, and play the Western. Now we had planned to do Nova Scotia this year, but as I said, we have to go to Ireland and France in the end of September. So rather than go to Nova Scotia, the Irish Blind Golf is open in the middle of September, is on the middle of September, and we plan to do that one. The Irish Blind Golf Championship is on in outside Dublin, so that's our plan for this year.

Gerry Nelson:
When we get toward the end of the podcast, we like to do a few little rapid-fire questions. I'm just going to ask you some short little questions, you can give me some short little answers and we'll just have a little bit of fun with this. What's your favourite club in the bag? In your bag?

Julie:
I think my favourite club is the seven iron because if I start getting rattled, I pull the seven iron out and it pulls me back into confidence again.

Gerry Nelson:
Right on. Pierce, what about you?

Pierce:
Well, Gerry, I was hoping you were going to ask me what's my favourite hole in TPC. My favourite hole was the 19th.

Gerry Nelson:
Yeah. Yeah, there's a few people, I think, like that hole.

Pierce:
I actually, I like the pitching wedge because I'm very accurate with it. So I could, from about a hundred yards to 110 yards, I'm pretty much confident I can get bang on all the time.

Gerry Nelson:
And it's a nice easy club to hit.

Pierce:
Absolutely. Yeah, so that's the one. Yeah.

Gerry Nelson:
Your favourite course that you have ever played. Most favourite course you've ever played?

Julie:
My favourite course would be Druids Glen, which is south of Dublin. It's a Parkland course. They've had the Irish Open on it four times, I think. Spectacular, beautiful golf course.

Gerry Nelson:
Do you have one Pierce?

Pierce:
Yeah, I was going to say, any golf course sure beats working, but there's a course we played once, just once, and I probably never played again. It's called Coeur d'Alene. It's in Idaho.

Gerry Nelson:
I've heard of it. Yeah.

Pierce:
Well, we went there about four years ago for the weekend and oh, it's just a wonderful... On the course you have to take a caddy, they've no markings on the course at all. They don't tell you how far it is out from the greens. But they've one green, it's called a floating green, and they keep it at about 180 yards and they move it this way and that way. But you take a little boat out to it. It's incredible.

Gerry Nelson:
Yeah, that would be a pretty unique experience. All the places that you folks have been, do you have a favourite country to play golf in?

Julie:
Well, I think my favourite would be the USA. I mean, we played in Sawgrass was just a once-in-a-lifetime experience. That would be my one. We lived in Virginia as well in 2001 and 2002, and I played golf there, and so we played a little bit of golf in the States. I've enjoyed it very much.

Pierce:
Yeah, I think I obviously prefer Ireland to play golf in, but for weather you can't beat North America. So here, and it's a different game. There's no wind, there's no rain, so it's a different game. But as I said before, anytime I'm playing golf, I'm blessed.

Gerry Nelson:
Well, and the links golf that you have in Ireland and we don't have nearly enough of it over here, in my opinion, that's pretty special to play that as well. Get a taste of links golf and it's pretty sweet.

Pierce:
Gerry, we were in Ireland for three weeks at Christmas. Our daughter had a child, and I have a friend who's a member in Portmarnock, the place you played the Vision Cup in. So we played out there and the rain was coming in horizontally at a hundred miles an hour. It was that a happy experience. Yeah.

Gerry Nelson:
Wow. You hear of the weather like that. I guess I played in weather like that in Scotland one year and it was actually snowing or sleeting and we played through it, but I could hardly swing. I had three layers of clothes on, a beanie to keep my head warm. But we were playing with a lady who was the rep at one of the local distilleries, so we had a lot of antifreeze that day. And to this day, I don't think I could tell you what I shot, but it was a memorable day. Do either of you have a favourite professional golfer, man or woman?

Julie:
I think I have a soft spot for Rory McElroy. I remember seeing him on TV as a young little fella shooting golf balls into a washing machine and I thought, I've got to follow this fellow.

Pierce:
I'd be a big fan of Pádraig Harrington. I'm sure you heard of him. I think he won the seniors last year in the States and he won the seniors open in Britain. He is a fine golfer. I met him a few times.

Gerry Nelson:
And he's doing very well on the Champions tour right now, I hear, as well. He's hitting it as far as he ever did and just absolutely loving it. You're somewhere, you're going out for dinner, the two of you, what's your favourite restaurant meal? What are you going to be looking for on the menu?

Julie:
I love a really good Indian meal. Coconut chicken, I'm in heaven.

Pierce:
[inaudible 00:29:24] rib-eye steak person. And mushrooms.

Gerry Nelson:
Well guys, listen, it's been great having you on. Really want to thank you. And I know I can speak on Darren's behalf when I say we're really looking forward to seeing you guys again. Probably Darren will see you before I will, maybe. But see you in Saskatoon or Warm and I guess at the Legends. So really looking forward to that. And again, it was a pleasure to be your teammate in Sawgrass, Julie, and Pierce and had such a wonderful time that day. And we even won our point, which is good. So thanks so much again for coming on.

Pierce:
Good luck to you guys and your tournaments in the States and...

Julie:
South Africa.

Pierce:
South Africa, Darren. Hope you do well.

Gerry Nelson:
Darren, before we scaved on out of here, why don't you thank our sponsors for us?

Darren Douma:
Absolutely. Without them we couldn't do what we do. So we thank EMI for their support, as always. CCB National, CNIB Foundation, all our Lions Clubs across Canada. And I have to reach out for some special new sponsors we have, Robertson Bolt Sales and Protocol, and Sasktel, as well as WestJet. And last but not least, I always thank ISPS Handa for their support.

Gerry Nelson:
Well thank you very much Darren for that. And remember everyone, at Blind Golf Canada, you can still play.

Announcer:
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