Right? Nope. Jesse knows difficult and, compared to the road he's traveled, the hole-in-one was a step off the curb.

Smith once had to lie face down for 36 weeks. Smith, 17 at the time, had a detached retina and a surgically-implanted bubble of gas lodged with gentle pressure against the tissue tear, in hopes of reconnection. He was told if he was ever to stand upright, the change in pressure could cause the gas bubble to explode, causing all kinds of mess inside his skull, like permanent darkness. Three such operations, which included 12 weeks of rehabilitation, failed. Thirty-six weeks. Face down. All the time, no matter what his need.

Now THAT was tough.

Or maybe it was walking around for a full year as an 18-year old -- ``it was like looking through a bottle of hand sanitizer' -- hoping his detached retina would heal, hoping the oh-so-gentle pressure from the silicone gel would reconnect the tissue. It did. But Jesse's thinking he wouldn't want that for his worst enemy.

Or maybe the toughest part was five years ago, just going to wrestling practice one day at Petaluma High School, having an uneventful practice, nothing to remember, not one noticeable tug or pull or head butt or kick, and he went home, sitting, watching television . . .

``And then everything slowly started going gray over me,' said Smith, a sophomore at SRJC. Until everything went black. To this day he doesn't know how it happened. Just that it did. And it changed so much, not the least of which was his concept of divine intervention.

When asked Wednesday if he thought his hole-in-one was a miracle shot, Smith said he addressed the potential for miracles when he was face-down on that massage table for 36 weeks.

``I don't believe in miracles,' he said. ``When I was lying there I thought about it. `If miracles happen, why am I blind?'

The miracle, as it turned out, was Smith himself, not duplicating some of his family's history. He is working toward in Associate of Arts degree at SRJC, headed toward a four-year degree in physical therapy.

``About half my family is in jail,' said Smith, 6-foot-1, 200 pounds. ``So if this (vision impairment) hadn't happened, I wouldn't have met and got to know all the people I have, my friends, my family, the people who have supported. I wouldn't have been able to afford college: I get financial help because I am low income and have a disability. Without all that, it's possible I could have ended up there (jail).'

The miracle, as it turns out, is hardly something splashy or flamboyant. It's his determination.

``Keep moving forward,' he said. Easy to say, hard to do, especially after one peek of Smith's resume. He was born in Santa Rosa 22 years ago with congenital cataracts. A week old, Smith had the cataracts removed, the first of 15 eye surgeries, maybe 20, he's stopped counting. He has glaucoma. There are days his eyes leak a little blood. He declined special optics that might have allowed him to drive because ``my eyes fluctuate daily. Floaters and debris come and go. There's no consistency. I would hate to hurt someone with my car.'

Then, of course, there were those two years struggling with a detached retina, just a foot slip away from complete blindness. ``I was crazy, depressed,' he said. He finished his senior year at Laguna High School in Sebastopol, a continuation school. He always had been athletic, a natural at sports, wrestling especially, and there was golf to help pave his road for him -- the only jarring contact there being club on ball.

As if that sounds easy.

When Smith stands over his tee shot, the ball is about four feet away. Except his eyes deceive him. The ball looks to be about 40 feet away. ``It's like looking through binoculars backwards,' said Smith, who moves about by bus, friends or by his daily caregiver, April Nix.

Black spots dance in front of his eyes. As long as he remains calm, his eyes will stop shaking. When the ball leaves his club, Smith can track it for about 70 feet. On a clear day. On a foggy or cloudy day? Forget it. When he lines up his putt, he doesn't drop to one knee and study the line to the pin. That's because he can't see the line to the pin. So Smith guesstimates where the line should be, walks six inches to the right of it, and lets his feet do the assessing.

``I feel the green with my feet,' Smith said. ``Just like I feel the ball when it comes off the club, whether it's going straight, hooking or slicing.' This is what you must do if you are legally blind. The sense of touch compensates as best it can for the loss of sight. So he said he's shot an 87 at Foxtail and an 89 at Oakmont. He plays three days a week as much for his spirit as for exercise. That day he holed one, Smith was in ``disbelief.' Golfers usually don't do such things, especially blind golfers.

``One of my retinal specialists told me,' Smith said, ``that by the time I am 30 or 40 there'll be eye transplants.'

And if he gets two? Smith went silent. Almost as if it was too large an event to fathom.

``I can't imagine,' he said.

Imagine, I said.

``I'm going to go out and play a round of golf,' he said.

And then he'll go back out there and play another, and another, and another, and the guys at Sebastopol will probably give him a flashlight and let Jesse go deep into the night. Go for it, they'll say. You will have earned the privilege. You have indeed.

--Columnist Bob Padecky