Andrew Hayes is the Head PGA Professional at Vivary Golf & Adventure Centre in Taunton, Somerset. He has been a club Professional since 1991 and is a credit to the golf industry – warm, engaging and full of knowledge.
His life was tipped upside down when he had a stroke a week before Christmas Day in 2024. Here, in his own words, he shares his inspirational story and how he’s had to relearn and regather his coaching career.
Before the stroke
I’ve always been an anxious person and I've always stressed a lot about various things. I was always having headaches so I went to the doctor after a while and we first started thinking that I was getting them as I'm a very stiff and inflexible person. So we started working on all that but things didn't improve.
Then we started looking at how much water I was drinking. I could easily get to three o'clock in the afternoon and I would only have had one cup of tea and a glass of orange juice and they said no wonder you're getting headaches. So then I started drinking loads of water and, after drinking eight pints of water a day, the headaches were still there.
So then we started recording my blood pressure and I took those back to my doctor after a week. There were a couple of readings of about 245 over 130 and he said that I was lucky to still be alive. So they put me on various tablets to get my blood pressure down and, when I actually had the stroke, I was down to 170 over 90, which was still way too high. And then after the stroke, they increased my tablets and I'm now on about 125 over 72.
On the Saturday evening I had what they call a TIA (Transient Ischemic Attack) which is a mini stroke and I didn't realise what it was. I came in to play golf on the Sunday and the chairman looked at me and asked if I was alright as I didn't look well?
I explained that I had had a bit of a moment but I still played golf that day. I took my wife out on the Monday and I worked all day Tuesday. I played skittles on the Tuesday night, got home, had a cup of tea and said that I was off to bed.
My wife and I were both snotty with colds so we were in separate rooms at the time and I woke up at a quarter to three and my life had changed. I just about managed to get out of bed, I dragged my right foot across the floor to try and get to the toilet and I couldn't open the door with my right hand because my right hand wouldn't work.
I shouted to my wife that I needed help, she said what type of help? And I said, 999. I passed their tests over the phone and with the paramedics when they arrived. I went to the doctors in the morning and, within 10 minutes of seeing her, I was blue-lighted into the hospital where I spent the next six days. This was December 18, 2024 so I'm just over a year now.
I lost the whole of my right side, it took five days for me to just move my thumb and it took five weeks to be able to write. And when I say write, it looked like a six-month-old child had just managed to write his first letters. I lost about two inches of my brain and the specialist said that I had a 51-year-old body with a brain of a two-day-old child.
I had to completely relearn everything that that bit of the brain used to do, the only problem was that nobody could tell me what that bit of the brain did.
I literally sat in the hospital picking up cups and trying to stack them. They would put coins in front of me and asked me to pick them off the table. I had to do as much as I could to get the signals from my brain to my hands, legs and feet again.
People would say that I looked great but inside I was in turmoil. That was and still is really tough. Obviously in the professional golf trade, teaching is one of the big things that you do and recovering from a stroke is exhausting. At home we have a stairway which basically goes 180 degrees and I had a stool on that platform for five weeks so I could have a breather before getting up to the bedroom.
Pictured: PGA Member Andrew Hayes
The recovery
The occupational therapists were fantastic. I came out of hospital on Christmas Eve and they visited me the day after Boxing Day. I had two months off completely and started back on March 1 when I worked for two hours and then I had the next day off and it was all very gradual. In the end it would take me 12 weeks to be back up to my 40 hours.
I played my first nine holes in May and that was horrendous. We're a par 65 and my first round was 88. You then think I can't swing a golf club and everything felt different. Obviously one of the big things was whether I'd ever be able to teach again. But I could demonstrate what to do, I was OK and I remembered how to teach, which was a massive plus.
But I couldn't get back to doing a full shop day until October because I just couldn't concentrate for that length of time. I would do a lesson, then go and sit in the back and just do quiet, mundane things which would take quite a long time to do.
After the stroke I was probably down to 10 per cent, now I'm probably at about 85 or 90 per cent. If the doctor said this is as good as it was going to be, then I would consider myself one very lucky boy. I like to say that if I was on a football pitch then I've had a yellow card from the referee, not a straight red. I've been very lucky.
I've been seeing a life coach for years. He has a machine that monitors my energy levels and, for the past 15 years, my normal has been 900. When he measured me three months after the stroke, my first reading was 38. I'm now up to around 650.
“I lost the whole of my right side, it took five days for me to just move my thumb and it took five weeks to be able to write” - Andrew Hayes
People will comment that I'm further forward than I should be but, to a professional person who wants to be brilliant at everything, it still feels a long way behind. But sometimes I have to look at the reality and take the blessings of where I am.
I have had a few rounds now where I've knocked it round in level par and I can go out now and play with the members and participate and enjoy it. The members are a wonderful bunch. One of them said that I should have had a stroke 30 years ago because this is the best he's ever seen my backswing.
I'd been in the hospital bed for four hours and the first phone call I had from one of the club members was to first ask how I was and then to ask where my electric trolley was as I wouldn't be needing it for a while. Another one asked on the WhatsApp group what size shoes I was just in case I couldn't play again.
But they have been there for me throughout everything and their humour and friendship have been a big part of my recovery. Similarly I was very lucky to have the full support of my boss and my employers, Everyone Active, they have and still are very supportive in my recovery which is still ongoing.
I have learnt many things from this experience; don't try to do too much too soon, your friends and family are very important, look after yourself and whatever help and advice you are offered, take it. Having to accept that when you go to do something, that you used to be able to do easily and now at the moment is either very hard or not possible is very tough. This has been as hard a mental battle as it has been physical.
Many thanks must go to my family, my friends, Vivary club members, Everyone Active and the NHS, and especially the stroke ward at Musgrove Park Hospital in Taunton, and last but not least my rock, and my wife, Clare.
- Click here to read PGA Member Graham Neville's story with PGA Care
