"One in a Million" (aka WTF) Moments

[TheGeekGolfer]

Originally Posted by Slim

my ball was about 4 feet from the cup for birdie. Playing partner was in the rough.

He plays a chip, and his ball hits mine and knocks it in.

I took a par i think. What should i have done?

I believe, you put your ball back where it was (as close as you can get) and finish out the hole, still putting for birdie.  Your partner plays his from where it ends up.  If you're on the green and the other players have ANY chance of hitting your ball, you should mark it to avoid these situations.

[xxsoultonesxx]

This one happened to me today. I played a round with a few friends from work today and we all took carts (I usually walk). At the 9th hole as we were finishing up on the green a crow flies in to the cart and steals a brand new unopened snickers bar and flies it to the roof of the clubhouse and drops it in the chimney. I was just about to eat it.

[Fraser]

1. My brother was playing a friend and there were holes going in opposite directions. Two balls collided in mid air!

2. There was a par 3 at my old course, only about 140yrds but the green was about 40ft down. A friend's ball hit the cup, bounced out and went OB!

3. 185yrd par 3, superb drive that hit the edge of the cup/flagstick and bounced out at an angle of 45 degrees and ended up in a bunker...

4. Playing with a friend he hit a par 4 GIR but then missed his par putt from about two feet. He drops his ball on the ground and does a one-handed, back hand swing with his putter hoping to smash the ball off into the distance somewhere never to be seen again. He clips the ball and it screams right at his stand bag, hits his driver and falls down into the bag itself. It was magic seeing him turn from being enraged to rolling on the floor pissing himself laughing in the matter of a few seconds

5. My old course had a short par 4, around 280yrds off the back tees and there was a very deep valley/chasm between the tee and about 160yrds off the tee...In my enthusiasm I drilled my ball into the very bottom of the valley. Had a 35 degree hill in front of me which was a good 50ft or so high, standing in waterlogged ground and with basically no hope. Took a 7 iron and just hacked at it hoping to get it onto the fairway with a nice chip onto the green. Hit it really rather nicely and it wasn't until I got up the hill and near the green I could see it was gimme birdie. The ultimate hit and hope!

[Stretch]

Originally Posted by Fraser

1. My brother was playing a friend and there were holes going in opposite directions. Two balls collided in mid air!

OK, that definitely tops my original post in this thread!

[slackhouse]

2 strange but similar incidents.

On the tee box of a par 3, 6 year old nephew is standing 20 ft to the front right.  Hit a ton of dirt and ball jumps off sideways directly towards nephew.  He is practicing swinging his driver and hits the ball midflight before the driver could hit him in the head and kill him.

Dad is about to hit a shot over water towards the green.  I'm in front of him in a cart.  I decide to get out 3 seconds before he swings.  he hits his ball sideways and it goes in the cart directly where I was sitting.

Other than that, the usual:  ball skipping off water onto green, skull a bunker shot that hits the flag and falls in, dad hits shot out of bounds towards street and ball hits street lamp and bounces back onto the green, ball off of a electrical wire, water spout, tree limbs, other people, etc.

BTW, it has never taken me 11 shots to hit out of the trees.

[bkoguy07]

Buddy of mine par 3 170 yards, had a bad back so he was messed up all day hitting it short.  Decides to pull out his driver to take a swing.  Hits it hooks into the trees and bounces out hits the flagstick and falls in for an ace.  par 3 170 yards with the driver.  Yeah i was shocked.  it was hilarious.

[The Road Dog]

Soultones, Eat what, the crow or the Snickers?

[xxsoultonesxx]

Originally Posted by The Road Dog

Soultones, Eat what, the crow or the Snickers?

The Snickers! I was holding the flag while the others finished up, just about ready to walk back to the cart and open up my Snickers bar. I look up and see the crow in the cart and the bastard flies off with the whole thing. Right to the top of the clubhouse and put it in the chimney...mocking me.

I've never seen anything like that.

[melchior]

Total beginner friend of mine was putting on a green just trying to hurry up so we could clear the green for the group that was pushing us from behind.  As neither of us are very good, it's completely friendly and we're rushing.  That being said, he putts and his ball comes to me about 25' past the hole going uphill, I just decide that I want to stop it so I put my putter down and deflect it towards the hole.  It was as though I read the green perfectly, it came back slowly and broke about a foot and a half to just make it into the hole.

70', 2 putters, and a bogey for the trouble.  Neither of us could believe that that just happened so we went with the score and moved on...

[haapamaki]

My first ever eagle on a par 4 came a couple years back at Hollinger Golf Course in Timmins Ontario. It was a nice morning, on hole number one; after ripping a drive down the fairway, it took a huge hop off the granite 100 yard marker and jumping up to 8 feet of the hole! I couldn't believe that it would actually happen on the first hole of the day!

[tsbrewers]

I have been playing for a lot of years, but nothing really jumps in to my head.  I have had a few nice shots that pop in my head, but nothing REALLY bizzare.

One of the earlier replies does remind me a little story I had last year though.

I was playing in a corporate outing for my wife's work place.  One of the games they have available is a skins game you can buy in to for $20 per team.  We did get in on a few of the games, but for some reason, not that one.   Anyway, we started the round on #10, played all the way through and we were on our last hole, #9 a short part 4.  I hit a nice drive just short and left of the green and chipped in for an eagle.

In the clubhouse the golf pro (friend of mine) approached me and asked why we didn't get in on the skins game, I just told him I didn't think my group would really have a chance (I was the only experienced golfer in the group)  He just laughed and said that eagle on the 9th hole would have won us $400 apiece since it would have been the only Skin "won" the entire day.

Brew

[bunkerputt]

Totally forgot a funny one.  My buddy and I were playing out in the Texas hill country.  He gets up to hit a tee shot on a par 5 with a left-right slope.  Right in the middle of his downswing, a wild turkey goes "gobble gobble gobble" about 15 feet behind us.  He pulls his drive and it hits the cart path left, takes two bounces, rolls into the second fairway around 350 yards or so.  I get up to hit, same "gobble gobble gobble" on my downswing, I laugh mid-swing and hook one, it bounces on the cart path left, gets the roll, and ends up in the same spot in the fairway as my buddy's ball.  Every time we hit it left now we say, "Please let that be a lucky turkey."

[Kazoo59]

Fun thread here. Once I was playing with a friend of mine, Greg at Pecan Vally in San Antonio. He hit one of the worst shots I've ever seen inspiring this brief essay to memorialize it:

I'll never forget that day. Number 9 at Pecan Valley.  The sun was
shining. The birds were singing. Greggy was in the middle of the fairway with 4
wood in hand. Determined, nerves of steel, ready to fly one onto the green.
He takes it back low and slow. Tightly coiled, ready to unleash a mighty blow to the
ball.

The downswing begins with a little bump of the hips (or was that
recoil from some gas?). Anyway, the downswing continues, unwinding
beautifully, muscles taut and then the moment of truth...impact.

All hell breaks loose as the ball caroms off the club face high and left. Far
left. The ball soars, 15 yards forward and 100 yards left. Out of bounds. The
apartment dwellers are screaming and ducking for cover as though the comet

Kohoutek were inbound rather than just another one of Greg’s errant 4 wood shots.

All hopes are dashed as Greg looks on in wonder and amazement. He looks at me, stunned, "What happened"?.

What happened was perhaps the worst shot in the 400 year history of Golf.

It was a travesty. A lesser man would have simply left his clubs where they lay and

walked off, never to attempt the game again.

That shot is one of the great mysteries of the universe. How can anyone
hit a golf shot and actually defy all laws of physics and
achieve the results we both saw with our own eyes. We saw it and yet we still
can't believe it. It's not possible, yet it happened.

One day we'll know how the pyramids were built. One day we'll know who
planned Stonehenge and how they managed to assemble those great stones
into one of the wonders of antiquity. One day we will find Ossama Bin Laden.
We will never know how Greg hit that shot and managed to have it end up
where it did.

See you Saturday.

[darkhunter139]

Not that crazy but it was pretty funny.  Me and my cousin were playing and were on the 18th hole.  We were having a friendly competition to see who could score the lowest on the day and we were tied going into the 18th.  We both wind up around the same place, I hit my shot and land it about 4 feet from the hole (Easily my best shot of the day).  He steps up, gives it a full swing and it his some random branch just hanging out over the fairway and it bounces back behind where he hit it from.

[BogeyBogey]

Keesler AFB, Ms, approx 1978. I am a lowly Airman Basic student slime fodder. There is like one freaking General on the entire base, and he is never to be found. One day, I am at the range, I shank one left high and on towards the road and that MF in his staff car, general flag and all ( I totally freaked as I had only seen pictures of what a staff car looked like), happens to be on that same road at that exact time and directly in the line of fire. To this day, I see in perfect slow motion that ball and that staff car proceed on a collision course. I will never ever forget as the ball careens of the pavement at 150 mph just ever so slightly to the side of the car and bouces accross the windshielf of "the General" and then I see brake lights. Oh shit. Anyways, he stops for a second, and keeps going....

[Dave Gordon]

My very first game here in Cyprus. I'd gone out late on a Saturday afternoon, on my own in a buggy.

I come up short on a par 3 and walk over to the right side of the hole to play a chip.

I look up and sliding towards my buggy is a black snake! This thing goes up the side of the windscreen, along the top and slides down the other side heading for the hills. I'm standing looking around to see if I can share this with someone but the course is dead. I think I was taken aback because it was my first round and I'm wondering if this is the "norm!!!"

[B of H]

I was playing in a tournament in high school and the course was pretty soft from a lot of spring rain.  On one hole I had about a 4 footer for par and in my line was a little tuft of poa right in front of the hole (these greens were also super slow) and as the guy I was playing with got his ball out of the cup he put his putter down right next to it.  I didn't think it was a big deal since it were talking about literally just off the edge of the cup (the poa).

I hit the put firm at the center of the hole and it jumped over the hole as if it hit a ramp or speed bump with a bit of overspin hit the other lip and rolled up the side of the lip enough to stay on the other side without falling back in.

Luckily the local newspaper was there to capture the moment:  (got a box full of old golf stuff my mom saved when she moved recently and was reminded of this moment)

[jhwmusic]

My first and only hole and one...and nobody saw it...and it was on my birthday!

My birthday fell on a Tuesday so I couldn't find anyone to play with me.   But nothing was gonna stop me so I just went and played by myself.   Anyway, I decide to go play somewhere random and end up at The Brassie in Chesterton, IN...a decently nice links style course....but nothing special.   After paying for my round I was informed by the starter that they had a senior league that played every Tuesday so I was in for a really long day...the round actually took almost 6 1/2 hours.   Throughout the round, I kept running into the same guys on each Tee box and kept turning down their invites to play along because I just wanted to enjoy myself.  It was no different on the Par 3 17th...the guys asked "Do you want to just finish it off with us?"  I refused because I wanted to hit a few different shots off of the tee...choke 5, hard 6 etc..  So I step up to the back tees (192 yrds) with 3 different clubs, a couple of extra balls, and my range finder.   The guys in front of me were not very good so i must have waited for 15 minutes waiting to hit my first shot.   Finally it is my turn to hit.  I tee the first ball up, go through my routine and and fired.  I think it may have been the best swing I have ever taken and it was THE prettiest ball flight EVER!  Towering 5 iron with a slight fade, which was the shot I was trying to hit because the pin was tucked front right in little valley on the green!  The ball takes one small bounce, a check, drifted slowly down the valley and then there was a click.  The click was the ball hitting the flag stick and going in the hole!   I took off running and hooting and hollering "I think it went in"...left my cart, the clubs, range finder and extra balls on the tee box.  When I got to the hole there it was!   And it was just like in that commercial where the kid that hits the hole in one and he thinks nobody saw it... I could almost here that music playing...and then then I hear a voice...."Nice shot!"   It was one of the guys in the group in front of me who was still sitting in his cart by the 18th tee box.  He heard me yell so he stayed to see if it actually went in.  Nobody else actually saw it go in, but he saw me run up to the green and pull it out of the hole.  So he signed the card to verify!   To make it even funnier...my wife was sitting in the parking lot of the golf course to meet me to take me out for my birthday dinner.  So instead of going back to get my clubs and range finder that I left I called her to tell her the exciting news.  And while I was driving to the next tee, I dropped the ball, it hit the cart path and I almost lost it in some fescue grass...spent 5-10 minutes looking for it.  I was so spastic that I couldn't barely play 18.  I was still talking to my wife so I put the phone down in the fairway to hit my 2nd shot and left it sitting there with her still on the phone.  But she could see me from the parking lot so she realized what I had done.   So I had left two clubs, a range finder and two balls on 17th tee and a cell phone in 18th fairway.  Once she filled me in to what I had done, I realized that I also left the clubs etc..   I drove back out there and grabbed them.

This also happened to me at my home course, but it wasn't a hole in one.  I hit one in from 205 on a long par 4.  Only this time, there wasn't anyone there to say "nice shot."  I looked everywhere and there wasn't a single person sitting on their back porch to see it.  I couldn't believe it!

There is something about my birthday and amazing athletic moments....On my birthday I also hit a game tying homerun in bottom of last inning down 1 w/ 2 outs, 2 strikes and then the game winning hit in the 2nd extra inning in our sectional championship game my senior year...and I also had an unassisted triple play when I was 13.  I need to buy a lottery ticket on my birthday!