Of all the books that have been written about golf, one of the most moving is "A Mulligan for Bobby Jobe: A Novel" (Harper Collins Press) by Robert Cullen. It tells the story of a professional golfer named Bobby Jobe, who is struck by lightning on the golf course and blinded. The narrator is his caddy, who accompanies him on his seemingly impossible quest to return to professional life. In golf jargon, a "mulligan" is a second, illegal shot that amateur players allow themselves to take after a particularly awful swing. The word's origin is unclear, but it primarily serves as a metaphor for a second chance. "A Mulligan for Bobby Jobe" is the heroic story of a golfer and his battle to return to the highest levels of competition despite his disability.
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Reading the book, one can't help thinking of Zohar Sharon. In recent weeks, Sharon, 50, a disabled Israel Defense Forces veteran who is blind and hard of hearing, has proved the impossible possible. Three weeks ago, he won the Caesarea Golf Club's Level Three tournament for individual players, and last week, along with sighted golfer Asher Siso, he came in first place in the Level Three Israeli pairs championship. Now he is getting ready to compete in the World Blind Golf Championship tournament that will take place next month in Scotland. The magnitude of Sharon's achievements takes a moment to sink in: Playing solo and as part of a pair, Sharon did not win a championship for the blind or disabled; in two competitions, he beat a large group of non-disabled golfers to take the title.
Sharon plays according to the rules for blind golfers, which differ only slightly from the regular rules. The differences amount to this: The blind golfer is allowed to ground the club in a sand trap or in a lateral hazard, and the caddy is allowed to stand behind the golfer as he hits the ball. That's it for the advantages. The list of disadvantages is endless.
Sharon, who was born and raised on Moshav Aviel near Binyamina, volunteered for the Paratroops, served as a sapper and sniper (which led to his hearing impairment) and spent five years as a career army officer after completing his compulsory service. During one combat operation, a chemical substance sprayed in his face caused the immediate loss of vision in his right eye and damaged the vision in the left. He lost the remaining vision in his left eye about three years later. "I was driving with my wife in Hadera when I suddenly felt that my eye was filling with blood," he recalls. "I told my wife to take the wheel because I couldn't see anything. That's when I went blind for good."
As a result of his blindness, he had to close down his bakery, clothing and plant nursery businesses, which he could no longer run. In subsequent years, he nurtured a talent for painting and studied for a year at the Bezalel Academy of Art before going on to study painting and sculpture at the Avni Institute for eight years. At night, he studied physiotherapy. He exhibited his paintings in Tel Aviv and New York. He and his wife had a son and daughter, but the marriage later fell apart. At age 36, alone in his dark world and cut off from his children, he sank into a bitter depression.
To meet him now is to find a totally different - happy - person. He says it's all due to golf.
A masochistic experience
He came to golf just by chance. About 13 years ago, when his divorce was in the final stages, his wife's lawyer came to his home in Caesarea to get him to sign some papers. As they were talking, the lawyer suggested that Sharon try putting balls on the carpet and left him a putter and 10 golf balls. Sharon was hooked and kept at it. Mirit Ofer, the first wife of business tycoon Yuli Ofer, who had taken Sharon under her wing during that difficult period and helped him a great deal, noticed his talent and invited him to come with her to the golf club and meet the director, Alon Ben-David.
Before he was blinded, the fictional Bobby Jobe was a top professional golfer. Zohar Sharon was trying to make a go of it as a businessman before total blindness set in. In his youth, he was a soccer goalkeeper and a national track champion, but he had no experience whatsoever with golf. He'd never held a golf club, never made a golf ball soar and never sank a putt. All he recalled about the sport was a scene from a movie in which some rich men were riding around on golf carts. He thought golf was a silly game for rich, lazy snobs.
He had to learn this difficult sport from scratch, once he was already blind (and using hearing aids in both ears). "In the mid-'80s, we were involved in a rehabilitation project for disabled IDF veterans in cooperation with Beit Halohem in Haifa," says Alon Ben-David of the Caesarea country club. "We believed golf has rehabilitative aspects that don't exist in other sports. Over the years, we have worked with about 20 disabled people. Sharon came to us as part of this project about 12 years ago, but apparently the tremendous frustration involved in learning this sport - even for healthy people - was too much for him, and he decided to leave."
Sharon remembers being in very bad shape at the time - in a poor emotional state and on a high dosage of psychiatric drugs. Ben-David supplied him with equipment and sent him to Penny Halfon, one of the instructors at the country club. "At first, it was the most optimistic experience for me at the time. Alon gave me equipment, plus two hours of lessons every day and use of the fitness room - all for free." For the next two years, he tried to learn the game. "I'd practice from morning till night, in the sun and the rain. I hit countless balls - all crooked. I hit the ground, my hands were full of blisters, my whole body ached, I had no idea what I was doing. I was terrible. I made a fool of myself."
One day, after two years, he stopped coming. "I went through a masochistic experience. I hated myself and apparently enjoyed the self-humiliation," he says, looking back. "And no one told me that it was even possible, that there were other blind people in the world who play golf. I saw myself as just a pathetic blind man."
After the initial feeling of relief wore off, he started to miss the game. But his sense of shame and of having let people down kept him off the green for eight years. In those years, he remarried, gained custody of his children - now 21 and 15, taught painting and graphics at the Avni Institute and at Neve Tirza prison, became a massage therapist and physiotherapist, and saw his second wife Daphna become religious.
His artwork also inspires awe. In a painstaking process, he paints using a technique in which he etches the lines onto a piece of plywood with a special needle before he applies the oils. He teaches theory and the anatomy of painting.
Two years ago, Ben-David asked him to take the opening swing in a charity golf tournament. Having agreed to take part, Sharon felt he had to practice before the event. He went down to the practice field and spent a couple of hours swinging the golf club - mostly hitting air, sometimes the ground, and the occasional ball. He says he'll never forget the opening swing of that tournament. Despite the polite applause he received, he had only one wish - to bury himself and disappear.
But the next day, Sharon came to Ben-David and asked for a mulligan. Ben-David agreed. The same conditions as before - all for free. Waxing analytical for a moment, Ben-David says that what happened at the charity event is the reason for Sharon's success. He failed in this golf exhibition and felt that he'd disappointed the person who put his confidence in him. This failure filled him with the motivation he apparently was lacking the first time around.
Mental pictures
Dr. Ricardo Cordova, golf trainer, psychiatrist and sports psychologist, was sure that in order to achieve any success with Sharon a different approach was necessary. Cordova, who before immigrating to Israel was the psychologist for the Bolivian national soccer team, understood one basic thing: Without imagination, even a healthy, fully sighted golfer cannot succeed at the sport. To hit a golf ball well, the golfer must first create a mental picture. He has to imagine the sound of the club hitting the ball, the arc of the ball's flight, the manner and location of its landing and how far it will bounce and roll until it comes to a stop. That's an incomparably taller order for a blind golfer.
When Sharon showed up for his first practice, Cordova told him to put the golf clubs aside. For many weeks, the two worked on what Sharon calls "golf dances and mental games." Cordova used straps and cords to restrict Sharon's use of the muscles not involved in a golf swing, he put towels under his armpits to make him keep his arms close to his body, and worked for hours every day to get Sharon's muscles accustomed to what was required of them.
In the second stage, still without picking up a golf club or a golf ball, they practiced the swinging motion, while picturing an imaginary ball taking flight, landing and rolling - with Cordova having Sharon tell him how far the "ball" went. When he finally let him swing a club, it wasn't to hit a ball. For hours on end, Cordova had Sharon swing at an old tire placed on the ground - to implant in his memory the position of his body at the moment of impact.
Sharon: "Ricardo also used pain to force me to remember where my head had to be. He would place me next to a pole and tell me to swing. If I moved my head too far forward, I bumped it on the pole and saw stars." At the end of a day of practice with Cordova, Sharon would come home and practice the motions for hours more, late into the night. One of his neighbors wondered if he was practicing a special kind of Tai Chi. Sharon says that when Cordova finally asked him to take a swing at a ball, he suddenly found it so easy. "In my mind, I saw the ball leaving the club and flying through the air."
These days, it's obvious how Sharon feels about the game. He's addicted to it. Myriad others before him have fallen prey to the same insatiable urge, which is fed in large part by the fact that on any given day, any golfer can hit a shot that players at the highest professional levels would drool over. It's no wonder that there are "Golfers Anonymous" support groups. This doesn't mean Zohar Sharon can play like Tiger Woods, but every so often, he'll hit a dream shot that will flood him with joy.
He's in good company. Many golfers have described the trance-like feeling of a perfect game, the sense of being completely detached from their surroundings and discovering physical abilities they never knew they had. This ultimate but elusive feeling is what keeps millions of golfers coming back to the green in a stubborn attempt to repeat their success. Non-golfers may be skeptical, but all they need do is visit a golf course and watch the faces of players lining up to hit their first shot: People who just a moment before were all harried and stressed look as if they're about to go for a four-hour walk on the clouds.
Dr. Ricardo Cordova: "I love Zohar. He has the character of a champion. He is gifted with unfathomable willpower and uncompromising discipline and persistence. He has tremendous patience and has no problem ignoring aches and blisters. He can practice the same simple motion over and over for 45 minutes."
Shimshon the caddy
Sharon's caddy, Shimshon Levy, is a crucially important person in his life. Besides carrying his clubs, he acts as Sharon's guide, compass and psychologist. He is like the spare part that Sharon needed in order to feel like a whole person again. Sharon has known Levy since he was born, 42 years ago. "Ten years ago, I was sick with mononucleosis," Sharon relates. "I was as sick as a dog with a high fever, lying there in my house in Caesarea with no friend or relative to look after me. Suddenly, Shimshon arrives and drags me to the sea, to dip me in the water and cool me down. Then he brought me back home to a room that he'd scrubbed clean before and had ready for me."
Levy has been with him ever since. When Ricardo felt Zohar Sharon was physically and mentally ready to get on the green, he knew whom to call for help. Shimshon didn't know a thing about golf. He learned as he went along. He says that in the beginning, he didn't think there was any way a blind man could succeed at golf. He spent months searching for Sharon's errant balls in the bushes of the Caesarea course before being convinced by his friend's tenaciousness that it was not an impossible dream.
It's only in the last six months that Sharon has experienced a real breakthrough in his ability - ever since Moshe Matalon, chairman of the Disabled IDF Veterans Organization, enabled Zohar to pay Shimshon a full salary. Zohar Sharon: "From that moment, I felt a weight had been lifted from me. Shimshon helps me not only in golf, but even more in taking care of my son. And when I'm relaxed about things on the home front, I can really devote myself entirely to golf."
In the past months, the two of them have been practicing for eight hours a day, drilling all types of shots. The division of labor between them is clear and based on absolute trust. Sharon: "Shimshon is one of the most precious people in the world to me. He cares so much about me that when I'm walking beside him, I'm not afraid of anything. When I'm alone with the dog, I feel terrified. I feel like a dog being dragged by a dog. With Shimshon, I feel like a human being. I'm suddenly alive."
Shimshon Levy, a father of three, has a symbiotic connection to Zohar Sharon and sees his role as keeping the tasks placed on his friend to a minimum. A golf game plays out over four hours or more, but if you consider that each shot takes about five seconds and that Zohar will make about a hundred shots in the course of a game - his total playing time comes down to about six minutes. The rest of the time is spent preparing for each shot, and most of what happens during this time is Shimshon's responsibility.
Shimshon: "When we play golf, I have to be a 120 percent sure that I know what I'm doing. There's a lot of work, a lot of decisions to be made - what kind of shot to take, which club to use, which direction to hit the ball. Because Zohar needs supreme concentration, I have to free him from worrying about the rest."
Imagination and technique
So how does a blind person play golf? Shimshon places the club in Zohar's hand, aligns Zohar in the right direction and tells him to hit a certain kind of shot for a certain distance. Zohar locks himself into position, raises the club and takes a practice swing - incredibly stopping the club just millimeters from the ball. Zohar repeats the practice swing several times until Shimshon approves. Then he lets rip with a real swing, without stopping, hitting the ball and sending it on its way.
Zohar says that during the practice swings, he pictures the golf ball being the size of a soccer ball, and the head of the golf club the size of a tennis racket. "If I thought about the real size of the golf ball, there's no chance I'd hit it," he explains. When he finally takes a real swing, he does not imagine that he is hitting a ball, but just using the club to swipe the grass. When the ball is lying on the green near a hole, Shimshon directs Zohar toward the hole, tells him the exact distance, then goes and stands next to the flag and squeezes a simple bicycle horn. Zohar uses the sound to judge the distance and direction of the shot.
Shimshon knows Zohar and his limitations so well that he can even tell when the way the golfer is flexing his muscles is off, and adjust his instructions accordingly. Zohar and Shimshon know that in order to succeed, they have to function as one. Zohar: "Shimshon is the brain and I'm the machine. It has to be a total, mystical connection. When I feel that we're not connected, it's a mess." Zohar is very possessive when it comes to Shimshon and wants him by his side at all times. He admits to feeling jealous when Shimshon offers advice to another golfer or talks to someone on his cell phone during a game. "Then I feel alone in the dark, and it's not pleasant. I want him to be like a Siamese twin. He's like a part of my body and he can't go anywhere else. When he goes away, I feel blind."
Now all their efforts are starting to pay off. They took two titles within two weeks. Zohar Alon, who played with Zohar Sharon and Asher Siso in the same group of four: "The five hours I spent on the fairway with Zohar were a thrilling experience. I can't remember the last time I came off the course with such a big smile on my face."
Alon was deeply impressed by Sharon's professional abilities: "He is calm and relaxed, incredibly disciplined and faithful to the mechanics of it. Unlike a lot of amateur golfers, who use too much power that makes their game unstable, Zohar puts all his energy into having his muscles remember what to do, and into neutralizing distractions. The result is a very stable game."
One of the most amazing things about Sharon's playing is the way he uses his hearing to analyze his shots and those of his competitors. "It's unbelievable how Zohar can tell me, just from the sound of the club hitting the ball, that my ball landed in the sand on the left, 150 meters away."
Shimshon Levy and Zohar Sharon are currently gearing up for the World Blind Golf Championship tournament that will be held in Scotland, the birthplace of golf, next month. Alon Ben-David of the Caesarea country club is optimistic: "Zohar is made of championship material. He has iron discipline, a strong character that enables him to cope with disappointments, and the mental ability to concentrate for long hours and to play an intelligent game. I'm confident he'll go far."
Haaretz.com, the online edition of Haaretz Newspaper in Israel, offers real-time breaking news, opinions and analysis from Israel and the Middle East. Haaretz.com provides extensive and in-depth coverage of Israel, the Jewish World and the Middle East, including defense, diplomacy, the Arab-Israeli conflict, the peace process, Israeli politics, Jerusalem affairs, international relations, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, the Palestinian Authority, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, the Israeli business world and Jewish life in Israel and the Diaspora.
