Skiing champ Bode Miller was enjoying a quiet afternoon of golf on Thursday, when a golf ball he hit nearly blinded his wife Morgan.

Miller is renowned worldwide for his athletic prowess – he has picked up five Olympic medals in total, more than any other skiier, and is widely considered America’s all time most successful male alpine ski racer – however his sporting skills apparently abandoned him on Thursday when he accidentally sent a line drive traveling at 160 mph (257 kph) into his wife’s eye.

In a tweet to fans, Miller wrote, “First major golfing catastrophy. :-( details soon, hospital now.”

Miller’s wife, Morgan, was apparently hiding behind a tree that Miller later said he had been trying to avoid hitting, but instead that was exactly what happened. Fortunately for Morgan, she was wearing a pair of Kaenon sunglasses that helped cushion the powerful blow. According to both Bode and Morgan, if it had not been for those sunglasses, she would have been blinded in the eye.

In a message sent from her hospital bed, Morgan thanked the sunglass manufacturer for providing the apparently shatterproof frames. “A huge thank you to @Kaenon,” Morgan wrote. “By absorbing a 160mph line drive I only got 50+ stitches instead of losing my eye #lucky.”

She also attached a photo of the glasses; although the frames had cracked in one place the lenses were impressively undamaged. After doctors at the hospital had stitched up, Miller tweeted out a thanks to the UC San Diego Health System, writing, “She's a trooper, the docs did a great job, thanks @ucsdhealth.”

Morgan later tweeted an update of her condition, telling fans she had been discharged from the hospital. “Discharged and headed home,” she wrote. “Hoping I can score a cool eye patch for Carving's race on Saturday at Hollywood Park from my check up tomorrow.”