Blind Golfer Scores Hole-In-One

This is a rare feat for golfers like me with relatively good vision (with my glasses on I can see the pin from 200 yards away) but is really rare for guys like Leo Fiyalko who is legally blind, 92 years old and, God bless him, is still swinging. I have been fortunate enough to have three holes-in-one in my 30 year + golf career and know first-hand what a thrill it is – especially the first one! And, I got to actually see the ball go in the hole all three times! This story comes from Angela Jacobs, writing for the tampabays news 10 website. It's a story worth reading.

Normally, nine holes with his wife Pat is all he plays in a week. This time he was playing in a Thursday foursome with a group of golfers ranging in age from 70 to 90-plus and on the Par 3, 5th hole at Cove Cay Country Club in Clearwater, Florida, he scored his very first ace in his 60 years of playing golf. Swinging a five-iron from 110 yards away he had to rely on his golfing buddies to tell him his shot had gone in the hole. “I could tell it went on the green, (but) when we got up there I didn’t see it. I looked in the hole and there it was,” said Jean Gehring, one of his playing partners. For the past 10 years, Leo has had macular degeneration, no vision in his left eye and only peripheral vision in his right. 

Leo brushes the whole thing off as no big deal, even refusing to appear on the Jay Leno show, "I didn't want to fly," he said. On January 10th, the day he made his ace, he said it didn't excite him much, attributing his lack of emotion to old age. (I don't know about him, but personally, at age 92 I would be excited just to be swinging a club!) So he still can't understand why the rest of the world is making a big deal out of it.  A humble Leo comments, "When I get up to the green, I can barely see the ball, I'm just trying to hit the damn ball. I'm lucky to hit it." 

The story ran in the London Times, the New York Post, the Daily News, Sports Illustrated. Golf Digest and the Associated Press. He even turned down an appearance on Good Morning America, saying, "if they want to talk to me they can come here." His wife Pat says he settled down quickly enough, not wanting to take long trips because of his age. Fiyalko’s friends at Cove Cay CC presented him with a plaque to commemorate the feat.

 

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