What's the closest call you've had on a golf course?

[Jayel]

instance where i was almost hit:::
me and my uncle were playing bethpage and i was in the cart about 3 feet in front of his ball to the right. he smacks it off the toe of the club and it flies at the cart, hits off of the window, hits off of our clubs, then lands in the carts basket.

(little bit of revenge )

instance where i witnessed it:::
i was on a par five with my uncle (same one who almost hit me) and i readied up to the ball with my 4 wood. he was about 150 yards ahead of me looking for his ball to the right. i hit my shot and its a good shot, just a little lower then normal. there was a set of trees to the right and it barely hit one and rocketed off to the right. it rattled off of the top of my uncle's cart while he was driving.

both close calls

[flopdarock]

i was teamed up with a couple of hackers... one guy was okay... the other was the worst ive seen in a veryyy long time...
he was bombing greens... just not on the holes we were currently playing at the time... we were playing ready golf and he decided to tee up first on a long par 5... i was by my bag grabbing tees and pulling the cover off my driver when i hear him absolutely clobber a ball... the very next thing i hear an see is his ball whistling by me slamming into my stand bag knocking it over...
i tried my best to stay out of the line of fire after that... but the way he hit it was impossible... hahaha

[MI Rob]

I was in the middle of the fairway on a hole parralel to the next hole. Some guy sliced and his ball landed right next to my foot. He never yelled fore or gave me any warning.

[jb1982]

I'm 210 out on a par 5, in the rough. (our rough is "wild land" not much grass with lots of rocks). My ball is sitting behind a rock and I should have laid up with a wedge to get over the rock but I was 2 down with 2 to play in our league. I pulled a 4 iron and absolutely PURED it. The problem is it didn't clear the rock. It bounced back at me and drilled me right in the crotch. It was within 2 inches of making my voice much higher. I had a bruise the size of a softball for about 3 weeks afterward. And I went on to bogey the hole and lose the match.

Not life threating but I saw my chances of having kids flash before my eyes!!

[slingshot55]

Just this sunday I was golfing with a friend who hasnt been playing for long and while I was standing on the green he chipped just barely over my head we joked about it but then on the next hole he hit a fairway wood from about 20 feet away and it zipped right by my face.
But at work my boss was hit right above the eye by a drive had to be rushed to the hospital he was fine though.

[flopdarock]

i was in a greenside bunker... i picked the ball clean instead of digging it out... shot way up in the air and almost creamed an old lady on the next teebox... it happened way too fast to yell fore... but i did... just a lil too late

[Hitman]

Using the Lung Assocation Golf book allowed My co-work and myself to play a few rounds on some private courses. #13 at an Elks course he tee's off par 4 350yds. and snap hooks left O.B. I tee off right side fairway first cut, he hits a provisional ball about 20 yds shy of his first ,but inbounds. his next shot was toped, I drive accross the fair way to my ball and another ball flys by in front of the cart . I stoped looked at the guys on the tee like,"Hello Big White Golf Cart", take my next shot, drive toward the green for my buddies next shot and the second guy on the tee hits one right past my buddies leg,about 300 yds out. I picked that ball up put it in my pocket and started giving these young guy's hell. We finished the hole, still giving them more than they wanted, he said he had never heard of yelling fore , and wanted his ball back. Told him I'd give it to the pro at the clubhouse. And the bad part was the pro couldn't understand why we where up set, and when I threw down the ball in the Pro Shop I told him some of his young stars needed leson's in courtesy, and I wouldn't play there again if they paid me.

[Jay-Bird]

I've had one recently and caused two.

A week-and-a-half ago I was standing on 15 tee when a ball landed right in front of me and bounced by. It was an errant tee shot from 16 tee. I was waiting for 15 green to clear, so I was still there when the hitter of the bad ball arrived. I just calmly said "Who ever hit the 'Titleist 2' you're still in play, it's right there just off the tee box." The guy was happy, figured he'd gone ob; it was waaay right, but blind from the tee. No big deal.

The two I caused:
Once on a long par 5 a group in front of me waived me through. They pulled there cart to where (I guess) they figured they were out of range and parked. I tried to motion them to drive a bit farther, but they either didn't see or didn't care to. As it goes I unloaded a huge drive, cutting over trees on a dead line to their cart. "FORE!" I shouted... then " BAM " hit the top of the cart sqaure-on. I was glad I didn't hurt anyone, but it was kind of funny.

The other time was when I sliced one way right over my fairway, over rough, over a drainage stream, over to another hole and as if it were a calculus problem, where you have to figure out the exact point at which the ball flying at 115mph from one hole could collide with a cart driving 10 mph on the adjacent hole..."BAM" I hit another cart... This time I was a bit freaked out because as soon as I hit the ball I knew it would be trouble, I yelled, but they didn't heed. I was playing the tips - way back and they probably had no idea I was even there, even if they'd've heard the "fore" they wouldn't have figured that they were in danger.

It happens. It's an inherent danger of the game we play. It's not worth getting upset over...

[jfrain2004]

While in my back garden hitting into a practice net, and only hitting half shots with a pitching wedge I caught the club in the net after hitting the ball( and as you know with a PW the club head moves slightly infront of the ball ) the net then tightened up, ball rebounded and last thing I remember was seeing the ball coming with the corner of my left eye , whack in the temple and I ended up in A&E; with a fractured skull. Can't even imagine what damage a full bore shot would do if you got it in that part of the head :(

[kingofcars08]

Thats funny this thread was at the top, I just had one happen to me. On monday I went to range before I had class. The range is on mats, and has the triangular shaped green wire mesh dividers. it was pretty busy, and I had 30-40 year old guy in front of me hitting his driver. I watched a few swings out of the corner of my eye, as he was breathing really loudly and his club was making some wierd sounds as he sliced his way to 10 straight shots. I looked down to hit a ball when I heard a huge "PHONK!!!", he sliced the ball off the divider, shot over and hit me in the right shoulder. Wasnt traveling to fast, but left a small bruise. After telling him to move to the last stall, I picked up my balls and moved to another stall, he still had half a bucket left.

[jorruss]

I was down a hill hitting my second shot on a par 5 once when the player on the tee box, who couldn't see me over the hill, hit his tee shot. I'm not too bright, so after hearing the sound of the tee shot being hit I turned up the hill to see if the ball was coming my way. It hit the fairway about 5 feet in front of me and bounced up and hit me in the right thigh, missing my "boys" by centimeters. I had a nice welt for a week or so, but I didn't complain since things could have been much worst...

[Bump-n-MI]

Here is an embarrassing (but true) situation that happened to me. I was hit on the fly in my leg….hurt like hell. Unfortunately it was in my younger rage fueled years (I think I was 20 yrs old). I ran as fast as I could to the guy that hit the ball, he offered no apology and said it was "part of the game"…so I broke his club then proceeded to break his face. I was charged with assault, banned from the course, and had to enroll in "Anger Management" courses. Fortunately the charges were reduced to disorderly conduct and I was able to keep my scholarship and continue to play hockey. Looking back now it amazes me that I had that little self control. Now I would probably just hit the ball back at the culprit

[Jay-Bird]

[lumpuckeroo]

I'm on a green, about 30 yards ahead of but at a 45 degree angle from a tee box. A guy tees off and basically hits the ball straight right, right at me. I just have time to flinch, and the ball grazes my shoulder and leaves a heck of a mark. SOB never yelled fore or even came over to applogized and thankfully my wife didn't questions my "hicky".

[cdriver]

As I started my downswing, a Copperhead slithered out from behind me and stopped directly behind my ball. In an effort to miss the snake, I topped the ball about 30 yards. I then used my club (7 iron) to beat him to death. My golfing buddies were all across the fairway watching this. When we got to the green, they said I had to count the first stroke, but they wouldn't count all the ones I made to kill the snake.... nice bunch of guys.

[Jay-Bird]

  cdriver said:

As I started my downswing, a Copperhead slithered out from behind me and stopped directly behind my ball. In an effort to miss the snake, I topped the ball about 30 yards. I then used my club (7 iron) to beat him to death. My golfing buddies were all across the fairway watching this. When we got to the green, they said I had to count the first stroke, but they wouldn't count all the ones I made to kill the snake.... nice bunch of guys.

So you lost one stroke and decided to kill a snake for what? For living in what used to be it's natural habitat?

In my opinion hunting and killing an animal for food is certainly acceptable, as is slaughtering animals for food. But I don't see any justification for you to "beat him to death." Karma.

[cdriver]

One other one... I bent down to replace my ball and remove the ball mark just as a guy teed off on an adjacent tee and hit a line drive screamer over my head that my buddy said missed me by about 6 inches. He said if I had started to stand up it would have killed me.

[mirv]

about three years ago, i was on a public course and a friend and i had just finished up a 235 yard hole. we walked back to the cart (which was about 15 yards left of the green), sat down and i was writing down our scores when i feel something slam into the back of my seat with a resounding *THUMP!* i get out, look around, and trickling away from the back of the cart is a pink golfball. if it had been even two feet higher, it would've slammed right into the back of my skull at full speed.

as an epilogue... less life threatening, though just as irritating, two holes later, my friend and i are putting out on a pretty short par 4 when the same pink ball lands and rolls across the green (directly across my line, as a matter of fact). now my friend and i, we're actually notorious for being very fast players on the local courses, so we were certainly not holding this lady and her group up. they were just feeling especially free to drive at us when we were still in range evidently. fast forward to the ninth hole... once again, we're on the green, and once again, a ball lands and rolls across as we're trying to putt. thoroughly pissed off by this point, i teed up the ball in a flat space just off the green, made sure the group saw me, and nailed a driver back over their heads. then i showed them my mr digit hand puppet, finished putting, went to the clubhouse, and reported that i'd almost been killed by these *******s, and they'd rolled a ball across the green TWICE while we were trying to putt.