Winnipeg Free Press
Wednesday, November 30, 2005

Byline: Martin Zeilig

DENNIS MCCULLOCH has had 700 hours of chemotherapy at Grace Hospital this past year, but that doesn't stop him.

"I work my treatments so that I get time off to go play golf tournaments," says McCulloch, winner of the Canadian Blind Golf Championships -- B2 Division -- in Port Alberni, B.C., in July and the bronze medalist in his category at the U.S. Blind and Disabled Golf Championships in Santa Maria, Calif., last month.

In an operation at Grace last November, he had half his colon removed after cancer was discovered.

"It's spread now to my lungs and liver. When I went in last January to start chemo, I was asked if I wanted to become involved in a self-help group. I thanked them and told them I hang out with different types of people, the global blind community," says McCulloch, who will celebrate his 60th birthday on Dec. 17.

Cathy Derewianchuk calls McCulloch -- gold medalist at the 2002 WBGC -- a great ambassador for golf.

"He's been around for a while. He makes you excited about being a participant. He's like a salesman for the game of golf, regardless of whether your blind or not. He's got a vision and follows through on things," says the executive director of the Manitoba Blind Sports Association.

McCulloch lost his eyesight 10 years ago. He was on the operating table at John Hopkins Medical Center in Baltimore at the time, having been referred there after developing a rare retina disease.

"The operation probably saved the little sight I had left. You go through a whole pile of mixed emotions. You can't work or drive anymore. You lose your independence. Your whole life changes -- and it affects those around you, your family and friends. You need them to drive you places if you don't go by cab," says McCulloch, a former sales manager in an agricultural business, who plans to participate in the World Blind Golf Championships in Japan in March.

"The big thing is you can no longer read. You can get talking books, but you can't grab a newspaper and flip through it."

Then, he started to try things he did before the onset of blindness. One of them, although he needed assistance, was playing golf.

"But there was a different way of doing it. I needed a new set of eyes and those came from my wife, Barbara, and my friend, Art MacKenzie," explains McCulloch, who has two adult children and two grandchildren.

"We play by yardage. They describe the golf hole to me. You decide on the club selection. They, then, make sure the club face is positioned to the ball and that you hit in the right direction. Then, you hit it and they find it. The toughest part is on the greens because you have no depth perception.

Wherever the ball is on the green, I will walk from the ball to the hole and my feet tell me if the putt is up or down and the distance. Then, 'my eyes' job is to read any break in the putt."

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Chemo can't stop blind golfer