Watch Out!!!!!

So on Friday I was playing Poppy Hills down in Monterey with a coworker, having a great time, sun was just coming out as we get to the 9th hole. My playing partner was playing real well to that point, 4 pars in a row until the unthinkable happened...

Yep, you guessed it, I hit him with my tee shot. Like, full on, direct contact to the shin hit.

I was playing the back tees while he was playing from the set ahead, and on the 9th hole, I had to hit from about 50 yds further back than him, so like he's probably done hundreds of other times in this circumstance, he standed off to the side by the cart while waiting for me to hit my tee shot. Not thinking he was in any danger, as I don't hit that bad of tee shots often, he was just standing and waiting for me to hit, looks back at the last minute to find my ball rocketing towards him.

I straight up topped my drive and it flew on a line right at him, nailing him in the shin. Now, I'm standing there like, "Oh F***!", I thought I hit him in the foot, watching him hobble around the tee box trying to shake it off. Not quite the case, when I get up to him, I'm in disbelief and ask him if he's okay and he's just quite while it seems like in a good deal of pain. Next thing, he lifts up his pant leg to check it out, and thats when we knew our day was done.

His leg had a hole in it the size of a quarter and was bleeding pretty good, thats when the adrenaline started pumping I think. We quickly find a towel to wrap around it to stop the bleeding and immediately drive to the proshop where I run in to tell the guys there we got a little situation on our hands. He brings the first aid kit out, calls a firetruck, meanwhile my buddy thinks he's going to pass out and need an ambulance because he was feeling lightheaded. I have no idea what to say at this point other than to apologize over and over again and just think how the hell something like that actually happens. Thank god, he wasn't too angry at me, more just pissed off at the situation.

Firetruck gets there, guys take off the bandage we wrapped around it and the firefighter exclaims thats a pretty good size puncture wound from just a golf ball. I'll try to get a picture of it loaded up so you can see for yourselves, never thought I'd ever be in a situation like this. After making their report, we decide I can drive him to the hospital because he needs to get stitched up, so off we go.

We get to the ER and after about 30-40 minutes they call his name thank god. Prior to that, he's calmed down after the initial shock of what happened and he's talking about trying to get back out there if we can get out of there soon enough. What a gamer!!!
Sure enough, I get a text from him while he's getting worked on, "Doc says I could play after he sews it up, call the course and see what you can set up with them". I'm like, well, ok, if he says he's good, lets give it shot.

Guys in the shop sound pretty amazed and are like, "Yea!! Come on back, we'll find a spot for you." One of the more amazing things I've seen from someone. Like, he wasn't even fazed by this after he got sewn up. He was more worried about getting back out to the course so we could finish playing before it got dark. Safe to say, he walked back and stood behind me for the rest of the day and I'm sure will probably do that from now on.

How in the world does something like that really happen? I'm just glad it hit him in the leg and not anywhere else that could do more damage. But seriously what the hell are the chances of that?!

Feel free to share any stories you have about someone getting hit by a golf ball.

Im interested to see the picture.....Anything can happen in golf. Even the pros manage to hit screamers into the crowd sometimes. You are right though, luckily you didnt hit him anywhere that could have been really damaging.

Glad he's OK! Returning to finish sounds like something my buddies and I would do.

How did you score the round? Did you (a) start over or (b) pick up where you left off? If (b), how did you score the hole?

Got the picture, now how do I upload it onto here...Really can't figure this out, how do I simply imbed the image I have saved on my computer?

Scoring was a little tough the rest of the day. We tried to go back to the hole we left off on but there were too many groups. so we skipped ahead to 10, then the group behind us would have been wating on us on 11 so we just hit tee shots there, picked up and went ahead of one more group to the 13th hole and played in from there. We were just enjoying ourselves at that point, glad we were able to laugh at the whole situation.

You need to upload it to photobucket or image shack and then copy and past the embeded link.

Hope this isn't too graphic for some people. This is way bigger than I thought it would show up.

Holy Cr*p... Glad he's OK!

That's nuts. If that hit in his torso or even worse, his head, that could have done some lethal damage. I can't beleive he went back to finish, what a trooper!

Wow. I will be getting the hell out of the way after seeing that one.

dude great story, glad to hear it turned out positive
picture is sick....thats quite the hole tho hey???

You must have hit some bone or something. You know, when I boxer splits his eyebrow? IDK how it could make a hole like that. You didnt happen to have a launch monitor behind you and record your ball speed? ( j/k ) Glad he took it well though

and your a 3 hanicap???lol jk glad everything is ok what a trooper did you at least buy him a beer?lol

Well, I will say I was pretty hungover that morning and still trying to find my swing. Theres a lesson for you kids, don't drink and drive. I did buy his lunch and we're still waiting to see the ER bill. Apparently there was some deal with the ER visit being out of network or something, so instead of just the $50 copay, he's thinking the bill might be around $500 or so. At least thats what one of the nurses told him I think. And I thought we had got a pretty good deal up until that point.

Your buddy is made of the good stuff.

gamer!!!!

The ultimate "Just Walk it Off" story.

ouch that looks like it hurts. Glad he is ok, and he is a hell of a gamer to go back out.