In fact, a similar accident happen at our course during regular recreational play. A woman teed off on a hole that parallels a boundary road. The road is out of bounds. Her drive hooked OOB and struck an off-duty cop who was jogging on the road, also in the eye and causing serious loss of vision. We were never sued, but the woman golfer and her family were. Fortunately, they had liability coverage as part of their home owners insurance and some sort of settlement was reached. Since we weren't directly involved, I don't know the details. However, the golfer and her family are good friends and had been long time members of our club. The experience proved so traumatic for her, they left our course for another club and I am not sure she has ever played here again. Her husband was one of our best players, several times our club champion, frequent competitor in state amateur events, a supplier of all of our irrigation repair parts, and such a close friend that I used to practice and play with him almost every week. It was a great loss to our club culture because a group of low handicap buddies he played with also left with him. Also a great loss for me and my staff because we were all so close to him, valued his insight, and missed seeing him on a weekly basis.
This happened 6-8 years ago, so at the time we became familiar with legal cases mentioned here and the liability issues involved in State and US law. Basically, all golfers hit bad shots and subject themselves to risk when they play the game. Accidents happen. People get hurt. Most of my maintenance people have been hit (several times) and wear protective gear. They are trained to get out the golfers way when working during play. Yet sometimes they don't see players and some golfers don't wait until they are seen and the course workers can move aside. They fire away. Very dumb, especially given the ordeal my friends went through. We've been lucky and accidents are rare. Not in this instance, but the majority involve alcohol and very occasional, once-a-year type golfers playing in some scramble or sponsored event. Like everything else, people do stupid things.