‘I am no hero or anything like that but it was a way of staying alive’

A NAVAN golfer who won the Scandinavian Blind Golf Open says the sport saved his life after a freak accident resulted in him losing his sight.

Eddie Maguire is celebrating after a triumphant win at Sollentuna Golf Club just outside Stockholm that saw him beating off stiff competition from golfers from 15 countries around the world to gain the coveted title.

No stranger to success, Maguire claimed silverware when he finished second in the Spanish Blind Golf Open at Centro Nacional de Golf in Madrid in 2022.

“It was a fantastic experience,” said Eddie. “Twenty-eight players came together from Canada, USA and all over Europe including Switzerland that for the first time had a blind golfer playing. It was a mighty battle for two days in Stockholm.

“I was guided in Sweden by my grandson, Luke Greevey who was a big help to me,” he added.

Blind golf is essentially the same as the traditional game except players have guides according to Eddie who said: “You can stand behind the flag in blind golf, and you can also ground the club in hazards.

“As far as the qualification is concerned, there are three tiers of blind golf. The tiers are B1, which is no sight at all, B2, which is 5 per cent sight and B3 which is 10 per cent. At 10 per cent you can see the ball as a blur, and you might be able to pick out some shapes.”

The Navan man discovered Irish Blind Golf some time after he suffered a severe head injury when he was struck by a steel door at the school he was teaching in.

For over a year he had no sight whatsoever, but with intensive regeneration treatment he slowly started to recover some vision.

Immediately after the accident, Maguire spent 21 days in the Mater Hospital before he was referred to The National Council for the Blind where he started learning how to use a cane.

“It was the result of a very bad accident that I had,” he said. “There was a mini hurricane and a steel door struck me. It was a very difficult time trying to adjust to life afterwards but I am so used to it now and I am really grateful for all of the things that I am still able to do.

“I was on a radio show with Pat Kenny on one occasion and he said ‘Ed, it must be terrible to only have six percent vision’ but I said I think about the poor person who has only three per cent and I say that I am twice as well off as that person. There is no other way out of it.

“I am no hero or anything like that but it was a way of staying alive. There were two ways of going, up or down and I came out the right side of it, thank god.”

Eddie says it was a couple of years after his accident that he took up the sport of blind golf.

“I had to summon up the courage,” he said. “I live near the golf course in Navan and I was able to walk there with my cane and when I was there I heard about Irish Blind Golf. They heard about me and contacted me and it was a no brainer, I was so happy, it gave me a new lease of life, I don't think that I would be alive now only for it. I am 80 but I feel like I'm 60. The person who came second to me in Stockholm was 32!”

Last year Eddie - who has brought out the 'Less Stress, More Success' series of books to help students - received a civic award from Meath Co Council.

He says the idea for the books that were regarded to be the biggest innovation in education in Ireland in terms of publishing came from an encounter with a fellow student in Columbia University.

“It was based on an idea I got when I was in school in America and the Americans have shortcuts for everything you can think of, said Eddie.

“There was a guy in my class in Columbia University where I was studying and he never had any books and one day I said to him, George I never see you with text books and he said, man I don't do that s**t! He says I get the 'how to' books, they are the books that have the course and also the way of answering the questions.

“So the idea was born from there!”