Visually impaired bowler Don Clark (left) and his director, Ray Zajonskowski, with the spoils after returning with the B3 category of the single men's crown in Hamilton. Photo/Paul Taylor
Visually impaired bowler Don Clark (left) and his director, Ray Zajonskowski, with the spoils after returning with the B3 category of the single men's crown in Hamilton. Photo/Paul Taylor
Retired Hastings schoolteacher Don Clark didn't have to play music by ear in his heyday because he could read it.
But all that changed for Clark one day when his worst fears were confirmed — he couldn't clearly make out what was written on the sheets and suddenly had to graduate to A3-sized prints to decipher musical notes.
"I realised it was getting harder and harder to read so it gradually got to a stage where I thought I'd better do something about it," says the 81-year-old who is finding melody in bowls after claiming his third crown in the B3 category of the single men's division of the New Zealand Blind Lawn Bowling Champions in Hamilton a fortnight ago.
"I noticed it more in reading music so when I had to enlarge it to A3 size I realised having that size in front of you was difficult to handle."
Macular degeneration — the centre of the retina deteriorates when leaky blood vessels grow under it — had been diagnosed in 2009 and treatment followed.
"When I found things were going wrong I thought just accept it and get on with life," he says. "I've never looked back or worried or been sad about things I could or couldn't do."
Among the can-dos was bowls which he had picked up soon after retiring from Karamu High School in 1998. Along came fellow Kia Toa Bowling Club mate Katie Portas, a Commonwealth Games medallist, to encourage him to take up blind bowls in 2012.
Katie Portas (centre, foreground) had recommended blind bowls to visually impaired Kia Toa Bowling Club mate Don Clark in 2012. Photo / File
He rolled out his mat and knelt on Portas' promise of enjoyment on a highly competitive platform and today reinforces his visually impaired club mate was right on both counts.
His maiden national B3 category singles crown came in 2013 before he followed it up with another in 2017.
Men and women play in the same field but titles are won in their respective genders.
However, Clark also defeated the women's equivalent champion, Sue Curran, of Hamilton, a two-time world championship representative, in one of the five games he played.
Four of the games went to the wire in the maximum two-hour, first-to-21-points affairs. Clark had eked out two one-point victories against Curran, also a two-time Commonwealth Games representative, and Danny Smith, also of Hamilton.
"I had to play to an extra end to beat her because you're not allowed to draw in singles," he says. "We've played against each other a few times and we're about even."
Clark and Smith were even on points going into the last end before the former made his critical move to eclipse the latter.
Having previously won the title did Clark have an advantage?
"Well, you go with some confidence but you have to be careful not to be like the All Blacks — that is, not be over confident because that's when trouble starts," he says with a chuckle.
He is indebted to Kia Toa members — besides his director, Ray Zajonskowski — who have been mindful of his requirements at the club and support him accordingly.
However, he's at pains to impress that doesn't extend to any preferential treatment because he's just another club member.
Anyone with visual impairment can enjoy and play the game whether they have lost their vision or someone who has never played it. That also includes a totally impaired B1 bowler.
"I'm delighted I'm still playing bowls and get all the support I need," he says, adding wife June who is "quite happy for me to go off to these tournaments".
Sue Curran, mentoring a para-athlete at the Para Lawn Bowls Commonwealth Games in 2017, had a tooth-and-nail battle at the NZ Blind Bowls Lawn Championship in Hamilton. Photo / Photosport
Clark and Zajonskowski have established a formidable alliance on the lawns for three years.
"He's the one who can see and he tells me what to do so it's a trust I rely on," he says. "I rely on him to tell me which shot to play and I try to do what he wants."
Clark says banking on his director's judgements is crucial to the success and something that has flourished with time.
Zajonskowski, of Hastings, has been a member of Kia Toa for 14 years. His ties with Clark go back to Manawatu where they grew up although the latter was teaching at the Bay of Islands before arriving here in 1965. They attended high schools in Palmerston North from the nearby rural areas but their paths hadn't crossed until they had exchanged pleasantries at the Kia Toa clubrooms more than a decade ago when Clark was an able-bodied bowler.
"But there's exactly three years between him and me to the day — we share the same birth date.
"My main role is to let him know which hand to play — backhand or forehand — where he usually has an idea of the distance to the other end, like 27 metres, so he'll make up to where the jack is two metres before that," explains the 78-year-old retired joiner from Hastings.
The pair tend to work on the face of a clock — which entails advising Clark to aim for 5 o'clock or 8 o'clock so as to enable the bowler to figure out placements for himself.
So how did they form the tandem?
"He rang me one day to ask, 'How about you come down for a cup of coffee?'. I know what he wanted," says Zajonskowski with a laugh.
He says blind bowls is far more relaxed than the parent code and the crowd is more jovial.
"It's still very competitive when you're on the green but when they're off it they're quite sociable."
Zajonskowski says it helped immensely that he was into lawn bowls although he may recommend a shot to Clark which he may not play himself because he can visualise it.
Bowls New Zealand has included physically disabled and visually impaired athletes under its umbrella for the first time as part of the code's inclusiveness policy. Photo / NZME
For the first time, blind bowls will be staged alongside the lawn bowls nationals in Christchurch next month. It's a Bowls New Zealand initiative to be inclusive and has embraced a section for the physically disabled athletes as well.
"I'm playing the New Zealand Open but in the visually impaired section," says Clark who recently stepped down as the secretary of the NZ Blind Bowls Association after three years. Kevin Smith, of Christchurch, has assumed that mantle.
"Kevin has full vision so our constitution allows sighted people to be part of the management and administration," he explains.
