While the sight in his left eye may be gone, Jeffrey Guan’s pro comeback proved his passion and ability endure.

I had a lot of mixed emotions going into my first professional event since losing total sight in my left eye. I didn’t know whether to feel nervous or excited. I couldn’t really decipher what I was feeling, but as the round got underway and I started to get my flow back, it felt really nice. Just to be travelling and playing tournaments again and making every shot count – that feeling is pretty much unforgettable for any golfer.

As much as I felt nervous, I was still telling myself, This is just what you do for a living. You’ve been through this before, even as an amateur or leading up to playing your first professional event as a pro.

Lucky for me, that first hole at the Northern Territory PGA was a par 4 where you basically hit an iron off the tee, so that made controlling my nerves a little easier. If everyone was hitting driver, that probably would’ve been a different story.

The support from all my peers that week was incredible – but that’s the Aussie tour for anyone who wouldn’t know. It’s just a place where, as much as you are trying to beat one another, you’re still part of an amazing group of friends, and the way they all encouraged me was so amazing. In that very first round back, I played with Harrison Crowe and Lachy Barker, and Johnny Serhan was coaching Harrison, and even he was giving me a lot of compliments throughout the week, which was so nice to hear.

I have learned a lot about myself during this comeback. First and foremost, I’ve learned just how much I love the game of golf – more than I ever thought I did, which is really saying something. On top of that, just being able to play and identify my strengths and weaknesses on the course has been great because I’ve always been very technical with every area of my golf game. Going away from that first event, knowing that I can still play, and just knowing what I needed to work on for the next couple of events was huge for me. As much as the experience and the feeling of coming back was awesome, at the end of the day, I still want to become a top professional and I still want to play well. So, taking away some of those ‘golf’ positives was a good thing.

Shooting a final-round 66 to finish in the top-10 at the very next event – the WA PGA Championship – took me by surprise a little bit because at that time, I still hadn’t made any cuts coming back, and there was a little bit of pressure heading into the weekend, knowing that I was around the cutline. That was my first target, to be honest – to make my first cut. When I ticked off that little milestone, I knew my game was getting there.

It’s amazing what you can do with one eye. I feel like my driver game has actually improved. Over the past few months, I’ve been working quite hard with my physiotherapist, just getting back in the gym to get my body in shape, and I’m starting to see results that were better than prior to the accident. I’m not talking about accuracy so much, but just simple stuff like increases in my swing speed and ball speed. All that was kind of weird to see, especially looking back to a couple months ago, when I couldn’t even get above 112mph clubhead speed, and now suddenly I’m nearly at 120mph. It’s a good feeling to have, that’s for sure.

Talk about luck – when I played at Kalgoorlie during the first round, I didn’t chip that well, but I happened to be playing with (renowned short-game wizard) Brett Rumford in the opening two rounds, and he was kind enough to spend some time with me afterwards and help me out with my chipping, because he saw how much I was struggling with it around the greens. His help made it easy for me around Mount Lawley at the WA Open the next week. For “Rummy” to just take time out of his day and help me out just explains how good a person he is.

People have asked me about the eye and how well it looks after the incident. It’s actually a prosthetic eye – a cover. My original eyeball is still there. I won’t be getting any vision back, from what the doctors say, but hopefully I get a bit of light perception. That is probably the main goal by the end of this year – unless there’s some sort of technology that can improve, then I’ll change it back to my eye. I’ll take my chances and hold off in the hope medical science can reverse the damage and I regain some sight.

To me, it’s just purely how I look. I look in the mirror and actually see myself again, which is a big confidence booster. I didn’t really want to go out to a course and have people look at me weirdly or feel sorry for me, so that was probably one of the main reasons why I got the prosthetic cover.

My goals for the rest of the season are pretty simple: I just want to play some good golf and show myself that I can still play this game. It doesn’t really matter to me where I finish on the leaderboard, as long as I’m happy with where my game’s at and I know what I need to work on. At the end of the day, golf is my life… and it’s pretty cool to be back playing again. 

Photograph by Monica Marchesani