Michael McGinley father of Ryder cup captain Paul McGinley has revealed he had a brush with death while playing a round of golf in his native Dunfanaghy. 
McGinley Sr revealed to the Irish Independent that two years ago while playing golf with his wife and friends he suffered a minor heart attack, he said,
“On the 16th hole I couldn’t swing the golf club, I didn’t know what was wrong with me, I didn’t want to upset anyone and lie down so I walked about ten yards away from everyone pretending I was looking at the wind to judge my shot.”
“Then I felt fine again and went on and finished the round.”
However when McGinley Sr returned to the clubhouse again he felt very weak and poorly again.
“When I got back to the clubhouse I felt weak like I was going to pass out, I went to the car put the seat back and tried to concentrate on the writing on the clubhouse wall, again after a short time the feeling passed again.”
McGinley Sr then decided the following day to travel to Cavan to watch a football game, while walking up the hill to the stadium he felt wrecked and when walking back down the hill after the match he felt wrecked again he began to suspect something serious was wrong.
On his return home to Dublin that evening he told his daughter Suzanne a midwife how he had felt over the weekend she urged him to go to the Beacon clinic the following morning to get himself checked out, McGinley Sr was then told after tests at the clinic that he had suffered a minor heart attack.
“The cardiologist took me into the room and showed me onscreen that my four arteries were blocked, I could see it as plain as could be.”
Doctors told him it was quite common for people to have suffered minor heart attacks without knowing.
In hindsight McGinley Sr knew he had been in trouble for a number of years, he had regularly suffered chest pains but put it down as indigestion and would pop a rennie or a gaviscon.
A few days after the diagnosis from the staff at the Beacon clinic McGinley Sr was back in hospital but this time was preparing for heart surgery.
The operation was a success, while McGinley Sr was very weak for months after the operation he slowly but surely got stronger everyday as he longed to return to the golf course.
“All I wanted to do was a hit a beautiful shot down the middle of the fairway, I had the operation in June and by October I was in Spain playing golf and by the end of October I was back at work.”
McGinley Sr is 72 now and his health has been fully restored says he has never ‘felt better’.
“I think I’m the luckiest man in the world, I suffered a minor attack. I have learnt my lesson now, lost the weight I had on and look after myself better.”
“But I was lucky it was caught in time. I wasn’t a great person for going to the doctor and I should have been going regularly way before what happened. I never thought it would have happened to me.”
That attitude is something Michael’s hoping to change; he’s been helping to raise awareness and funds for the Happy Hearts Appeal which runs throughout this month. The appeal, run by the Irish Heart Foundation, raises money for research and support services.
“Sometimes I go up to the Beacon and talk to families of people going in for a bypass, to put their minds at rest.”
“I always hated hospitals, but the message that I would like to get out there is to tell people to get your blood tested every six months.”
“The second thing I would say is, don’t be afraid of heart surgery; the facilities are so good to get this job done now. I meet women who say, my husband has got to go in for the bypass, and I can detect the fear in the way they speak, but it’s not like that at all.”