Young golfer doesn't accept blindness as handicap

WHAT HANDICAP?

Patrick Malloy never has known what it's like to have the use of his eyes. That's hardly kept him from leading a pretty normal life, including playing golf. And sometimes even helping others who can see.

Take his first day at Council Rock North High 4 years ago, where he was the only blind student.

"All through eighth grade I'd go there once a week with a mobility instructor, and in the summer I went over with my mom so that I would know the routes and know how to get around," he explained. "She took her stopwatch and said, 'I want you to have the same experience everyone else has. I don't want you to get any special treatment.' If everyone else had 5 minutes to get to class, that's what I had, too. She would time me and say, 'OK, we did this.'

"I was coming out of a class, dropping things off before the next one, and a couple of friends came up and I said, 'How's it going? You finding everything?' They were like, 'Well, actually, no. We're looking for our social studies class.' And I said, 'Oh, that's what period I have next. You can walk there with me.' "

He smiled at the irony.

Welcome to his world, which has been built around opportunities rather than barriers.

Starting next month, the 18-year-old Malloy will be a freshman at Muhlenberg College, where he admits he might finally have to learn how to cook. He wants to become an attorney, perhaps specializing in disability law. In June, he was awarded a $10,000 scholarship from the Royal Bank of Scotland as its male Achiever of the Year for his involvement with the Philadelphia Chapter of The First Tee program, where he's a participant and intern/mentor.

The thought of him being anything but mainstream never remotely enters his equation.

"A school for the blind is great for some people," Malloy said. "But I know that the world isn't going to cater to a blind person's needs. A regular school's going to teach me that. That's the way my parents brought me up. They could have looked at it and said, 'He won't be able to do this or that, or the other thing.' But they said, 'OK, he's blind. Let's approach it the other way. What can we do?' "

Apparently, just about anything he takes on.

"His blindness makes him who he is," said Dave Smith, the PGA director of golf operations at Walnut Lane Golf Course, where he's site director of the First Tee. "You can tell his mind is always working. If he can't see it, he's trying to analyze it in another way."