[Dan Kelly]

I told my story at the top of this thread: http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,34720.msg698737.html#msg698737


Lost some hearing. Still have tinnitus (like a quiet cicada invasion), dating from then.


I am happy to report that the renovation of Braemar is underway (the work of Rich Mandell) and should make a repeat of this incident far less likely.

[Kalen Braley]

Not to pour water on this fiery discussion....

But when you consider the thousands and thousands of rounds this group has played collectively, to only have a story or two per person, still puts your odds of being hit on the course at very very low.  Low as in similar odds to getting struck by lightening.

P.S.  Being hit at a tourney doesn't really count here.  Of course when you artificially jams tends of thousands of people on a course who wouldn't otherwise be there, people are going to get hit.

[Dave McCollum]

Once killed a coot swimming in a lake fronting the tee box.  The poor thing was thrashing around before expiring.  Three other coots swam over to investigate.  One of my playing partners quipped “lawyer coots.”

Worst I’ve seen is a guy I’m playing with behind a slow group in front.  Hits into them on a par four tee shot.  Not sure if it actually hits them, but they sure let us know they weren’t pleased.  The guy is sort of jerk and never shouted fore or advanced to apologize.  Very good player, though, and confident the ball goes where he wants.  On the next hole, a par three we wait around for their group to play.  They putt out and head to their carts about 20 yards left of the green.  Rather than moving on, they fiddle around writing down scores or something.  Same guy gets impatient and putts one in the cart on the fly with an explosive bang that scares the crap out of them.  This time they drive back for some heated words.  The guy was such a jerk, it was very uncomfortable for the rest of us.  All we could do was make sure he didn’t do it again and bought their group some drinks afterwards.  The jerk jumped in his car and left after the round.

Another friend is playing with his wife when she hits an OOB jogger, an off duty cop, with her tee shot.  Cop loses an eye and his career.  Very expensive insurance settlement.  Not sure she ever played again.

[Pete_Pittock]

In 20+ years of part time officiating I have seen one person (medalist, spectating) knocked unconscious by a tee shot, and heard a wedge shot hit the back of the hand of another official (who used to post on GCA).

[Sean Walsh]

Hit a youngish kangaroo from about 200 yards with a 3 wood. Must have hit right on the temple area. I walked up as quickly as i could. It was fitting and spinning round in what i presume were its death throes. The looks of the rest of the mob of kangaroos as I walked up to check it out were the most disapproving, shame inducing looks I have ever had. The humane thing to do would have been to put it out of its misery with a 9 iron but aware of how that might have looked i decided to finish my round and went to the police station (often police in Australia are called upon to put Roos that have been hit by cars out of their misery) and asked them to go and finish it off.

[archie_struthers]

Yes , but of course . What better excuse to defend my inane posts!

[Justin VanLanduit]

I've been working in the golf course industry for 25 years and have been hit 3 times by a golf ball and have hit one person myself.  First time I was hit I did it myself.  Was walking mowing rough around the practice tee at Green Gables in Denver, happened to mow over a ball which shot out, hit a tree and came back to strike me in the arm.  2nd was by my wife; helping her with her swing on the PT where she happened to toe the ball, hit the pyramid which then riccochet up and hit me in the face as I was standing to the back.  She cried and doesn't really like to golf with me anymore.  Lastly was hit this past season by a young golfer while mowing intermediate roughs.  I saw him, he saw me; I waved him up and he happened to hit the high floater where I watch the whole way, moving the mower forward and backward as I tried to judge where the ball would land and it ended up landing and hitting me right on the thigh.


For me hitting someone; it was a bullet duck hook that took one hope and hit a guy right in the gut as he stood in the tree line between the fairways.  I yelled fore as I knew it was going right at him, dropped him like a bag of potatoes.  I dropped my driver and ran up the fairway to see what help he needed.  Scary, scary moment.

[Kirk Gill]

I've never been hit by a ball, but I did hit an elderly gentleman once, and a bird on another occasion.


I was with a group of friends playing at Hyland Hills golf course in Westminster, CO. Truth be told, we were a bit inebriated. Not stinking drunk, mind you, but we'd had a few (I'm sure the folks on this site are too classy to have ever done this, but there it is).


On a short, uphill par 4 there was a pond directly in front of the tee box. Not in play, really, unless you just couldn't get off the tee at all, and on that day, on that hole, my friend Mario was unable to hit a ball over it. He proceeded to splash 4 or five in a row, which generated a lot of amusement amongst his playing partners.


I had to step to the tee after him, and proceeded to find that hitting a ball while highly amused is a difficult thing to do. Rather than hit it in the drink, I managed to hit the ball off the toe of my driver, with a trajectory about 90 degrees to the right of my intended target line. The ball bounced down a cartpath directly towards an older fellow trudging up the hill dragging his pullcart behind him. My friends and I repeatedly screamed "fore!" as loudly as possible, but he didn't hear us, and continued to plod towards the green. The bouncing ball caught him directly in the crotch, and it looked to have stunned him briefly, and he stood there for a moment, wavering. Then, without further ado, he continued to walk stoically up the hill.


I'm sorry to say that, once it seemed that he was all right, my friends and I collapsed with laughter on the tee. The older fellow didn't seem to notice.


And no, there wasn't anyone waiting behind us while we laughed.........


As to the bird, I hit an approach shot on a course up in Boulder called Lake Valley, and a bunch of birds that had been hanging out in a nearby tree decided to choose that moment to take off. My ball caught one with a sort of soft thudding sound, and the bird fell as if poleaxed. It just took him a moment to recover, though, and he flew off after his brethren.


I know that on the whole this isn't a funny subject, but my only two experiences with it kind of were. Funny, I mean.

[Anton]

I've been hit 3 times and had a few close calls.
-Was hit in the a#& by a short iron shot that caught a few leaves before ricocheting off my rear.
-Next was a shot to the top of my foot as I walked up the 16th of fairway.  Not a single 'fore' or acknowledgement from the other group.  The remaining 2 holes were a tough walk but I finished like a true warrior. 
-The worst was a shot to the upper middle back from a tee shot.  The guy in the group behind us was hitting from an elevated tee about 225 yards back from me.  No shout or warning of any kind.  I was only about 12 yrs old and that hit dropped me to the ground like a deer being shot by a hunter.  My father came running over and picked me up.  He lifted my shirt to check what the damage was since I had tears filled in my eyes due to the shooting pain.  He calmly said "wow. I can see the dimple marks and it looks like your back has 'Titleist 2' stamped on it."

[Ed Brzezowski]

I have been struck three times, once at a US Open so that's understandable.
 
Twice at my home course. Once in the arch of the foot and the bone chips are still floating around after ten years. It was a lovely shank that did the damage.
 
 The best one was to the privates. I had walked 25 yards in front of my opponent who was hitting a little sand wedge to the green. Sadly he bladed the ball and yelled "look out' so I turned to look, very bad idea. Had he said nothing it would have hit my ample backside and I would have been fine.  Spent the back nine with an ice pack gently placed just left of my center. Then thanks to condensation it looked like I peed myself on the back nine. But he did buy me a Coors Lite so I guess it's ok.

[Garland Bayley]

A Coors Light?!?!


I think you should have held out for
http://skabrewing.com/brews/buster-nut-brown-ale/





EDIT Another couple of choices
Boulevard Brewings Nutcracker Ale and Nutsack Ale.

[Joe Hancock]

Garland,

You seem to have a certain infatuation. Choose your drinking establishments carefully.

[Garland Bayley]

Garland,

You seem to have a certain infatuation. Choose your drinking establishments carefully.

Just suggesting what would be appropriate for where Ed was hit.

[Joe Hancock]

Oops. I should have been more thorough! Missed Ed's post.

[Ross Harmon]

I hit a cart once... was waiting in the fairway about 140 yards out for the group in front of us. They finished the hole and got in their carts and started driving off. I bladed one right at them as they drove away, yelled fore and tagged the back fender of the cart.

Just recently, I was on the receiving end of a similar experience. I was playing a private club for the first time in a foursome with the pro, a twosome came up behind us. Pro suggested we tee off and then let them play through. We drove ahead and then signaled for them to see off. We were about 200 yards out in the left rough. I asked if this was a good place to wait to which I was told "these guys are some of the best players at the club - no worry". About 10 seconds later our cart roof gets tagged. No "fore" from them. As they drove up they got a bit of a scolding but said they couldn't see the ball. I guess the "best players at the club" there weren't too good though!

[Doug Siebert]

The talk about hitting carts reminds me of the one time I did that, semi/mostly deliberately (you can be the judge whether it was deserved or I was a giant asshole)

This was a while ago, back in the early/mid 90s. I was playing with my girlfriend at some little 9 holer public course 45 minutes out of town. One of those courses where most of the people playing know each other. Typically we'd go out to courses like that on Saturday or Sunday early afternoon when it was really hot so the course wouldn't be too busy and we could race around and walk 36 in 5 hours, but for this first round there were a couple groups in front of us so we were having to wait on every hole. She was a college basketball player and pretty decent golfer, very long hitter for a woman (just no short game) but sometimes the 'locals' would assume we were going to be slow because of her.

On the 3rd or 4th hole we were waiting by her drive and a ball bounces past us.  We turn and look back and see a twosome on the tee, and then the other guy hits at us while we are looking right at him (we were in the rough, he hit into the rough on the opposite side)  Was going to say something but they didn't come up to the green before we teed off on the next hole.  The next hole the same thing happens, this time we are dead center in the fairway. One guy flies it past where we are standing off to one side, and I turn around and wave my arms and yell "hey asshole, we're waiting to hit!"  The second guy tees off anyway, while we are watching and hits a low burner that lands short of us and rolls up and just hits my girlfriend in the ankle. It was barely moving, and she could have got out of the way obviously but she just stood there, let it hit her, and gave them a death stare.

I grab my 3 iron, scoop the ball over to me, and take dead aim at the cart they are clambering into, intending to scare them.  I recall thinking we were about 240 out so either I underestimated the distance or had some serious adrenline surging because I hit the roof of their cart on the fly.  Man did that make a loud sound even from that far away, I can only imagine what it sounded like to them!  They disappeared after that, and my girlfriend and I were sort of half-joking that if one of them was related to the county sheriff he might be waiting for me at the clubhouse, but we went around several more times that afternoon and never heard anything about it.

Probably one of the best golf shots I've ever hit in my life, and I was pointed the wrong way to the hole! 

[Thomas Dai]

Hitting carts, how about hitting cars?


I have a relative who blocked a tee shot over the hedge onto a public road and hit an approaching car right in the middle of the windscreen. The type of car....a VW Golf


Atb

[Garland Bayley]

Hitting carts, how about hitting cars?


I have a relative who blocked a tee shot over the hedge onto a public road and hit an approaching car right in the middle of the windscreen. The type of car....a VW Golf


Atb

How about firetrucks? I was teeing off on a par three next to the street at my home course. A firetruck was coming with siren on. I figured the constant sound would not bother me so went ahead with my swing. At the top of my back swing the truck hits its hugely loud horn (obviously on purpose, because there is no intersection nearby that he has to warn) causing me to flinch and come over the top with a dead pull right that flew across his front bumper as he went by. A tiny bit later the ball would have nailed the driver side window.


This is the only time I have hit a ball so radically right off that tee.

[Doug Siebert]

Hitting a car is one of my biggest fears when I'm golfing. You put me on a course with a road down to the left, that fact will be in the back of my mind. I know I mentioned it to Dan Kelly in our Sunday Midwest Mashie match at Town & Country last fall. The 7th and 8th (I believe they were) holes have a road down the left. Even though I hadn't hit any big hooks that day, it is always something I'm trying not to think about during my swing on holes like that!

As for other wierd things to hit during a round, how about silos? My favorite interesting and somewhat quirky course near where I live I love to bring up here on GCA, Saddleback Ridge, has a couple of big metal grain silos left of the dogleg left 18th hole. You should never ever hit them, because it requires a screaming duck hook. The first year the back nine opened, I hit one with a screaming duck hook. Hitting an empty grain silo HARD makes a booming ringing sound you won't ever forget!

[Ed Brzezowski]

Garland,

You seem to have a certain infatuation. Choose your drinking establishments carefully.

Just suggesting what would be appropriate for where Ed was hit.
 
 
Well played, well played indeed.
 

[Dan Kelly]

Hitting a car is one of my biggest fears when I'm golfing. You put me on a course with a road down to the left, that fact will be in the back of my mind. I know I mentioned it to Dan Kelly in our Sunday Midwest Mashie match at Town & Country last fall. The 7th and 8th (I believe they were) holes have a road down the left. Even though I hadn't hit any big hooks that day, it is always something I'm trying not to think about during my swing on holes like that!

Doug --


Yes, it was 7 & 8 -- and if you'd driven the ball Sunday the way you did Friday at Keller, you'd still be dealing with insurance adjustors!


I'm still thinking about that second to No. 5. Shot of the year, for me (and I saw a hole-in-one).


Dan

[paul cowley]

It was 40+ years ago while working at PB on #4. I was hit in the shoulder while edging a left fairway bunker with my back to play...and the ball dropped straight down. I turned and saw a 4 ladies on the tee...and noticed that some of them were laughing. It was partly my negligence that I wasn't watching, but you can get complacent when wanting to get something done without interruption....but their lack of compassion really pissed me off. I felt like I was out there for amusement. I reached down for the ball, stood up and threw it across the fairway bouncing over the cliff and into the bay. They stopped laughing immediately...and gave me a really wide berth while finishing the rest of the hole.


 

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