BRAVE Salisbury golfer Andy Beal has given up hope of going to Tour School this autumn but he hasn't given up on his dream of playing in Europe again.
When he lost his left eye last December, Beal knew it would be tough to compete again at the highest level.
But he confounded everyone by taking advantage of a special invite to the Great North Open at Slaley Hall in June and actually making the cut.
When he played again in the Welsh Open at Celtic Manor in August he missed out on making the halfway cut by just two shots.
The reasons he missed out were two disastrous excursions into bunkers where, he admits, his sight handicap is proving a major problem.
"All other parts of the game I'm okay with," says Beal, "but when I'm in a sand trap, I haven't yet worked out how to line the ball up.
"As a result I'm messing up what should be straight forward up and down shots. I tend to thin the ball out of traps and it's so tight around the greens that you just can't afford to do that on the European Tour."
Unlucky Beal had to have his eye removed to counteract a cancerous growth. And if that wasn't bad enough an old neck injury reared up again in August and prevented him playing in the West of Ireland Classic (in which he was third in 2000) and the big English Challenge Tour Championship event at Bowood which used to be his home course.
Thanks to the European PGA benevolent fund, Beal is able to support his wife and two children (his second child Madeline was born only last month) but that help may only last until the end of the year.
The Salisbury and South Wilts clubman, who now lives in Winterslow, has applied for a medical exemption to play on the Challenge Tour next year and hopefully one or two European Tour events as well .
He admits: "Until I can sort my bunker play out, it just wouldn't be worth spending a lot of money and going to tour school where you can't afford to be giving shots away.
"I will practice and play as much as I can through the winter and hope I can overcome the problems.
"I'm not too far away. I was second to Lee Booth in the Wiltshire Open at Hamptworth and apart from my costly excursion into the sand at Celtic Manor, I coped okay with that course which is pretty testing.
"I would be the first one to throw my hands up and say enough is enough if I didn't think I could get back to where I was as a golfer. I think I still can so I'll keep soldiering on for a while yet."
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