Irish Post Community Award winner Billy McAllister from Carrickfergus, Co. Antrim, is, quite simply, one the world’s greatest blind golfers.
Billy has been blind since 2009 — he woke up one morning to find he had totally lost his sight. Diabetes had caused both of his retinas to stop functioning; he was completely blind.
Further tragedy unfolded as he lost his job and his home, and his marriage foundered. He’d had a comfortable living in the financial sector, but that was gone.
But somehow he pulled his life back on track, and in an almost counter-intuitive move took up golf.
Blind golf is very much a team sport. The guides-cum-caddies describe each hole, distances, hazards and ball lie. But it is an international sport run by the
But Billy believes he has some advantages over sighted golfers, claiming he can read a green better with his feet than someone sighted can with their eyes.
His progress through the game was swift, and has won just about every domestic trophy as well as coming third in the world championships.
Billy has since remarried, and is proudly part of the 1 per cent of blind people in employment, whilst trying to support blind, disability and diabetes-affected people.
Billy has a Google funding page for MyGolf for the upcoming season which the radio presenter James Whale has kindly helped Billy with. This is to help fund Billy during championships. So if you want to keep Billy on the fairways and the greens, you can make a donation on the link below. The Irish Post has already got the ball rolling (hopefully towards a hole-in-one!) with a donation of £1,000. So here's the link to help Billy to keep teeing off:
www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/BillyMcallister-BlindGolfer?utm_term=NqWjgYZYN
