Ever hit anyone (or anything living) with a golf ball?

[Mobey]

Like the title states....ever?  (Warning....long story)

A while back my brother and I were playing a small 9 hole course (18 tee boxes 9 greens) near his home when we came up on hole with a very hard dog leg right..almost 90 degrees.  My brother decides to grip it and rip it and cut the corner while I laid up for a long second shot.   He hit a beautiful shot up and over the trees....when we came around the corner...laying there in the middle of the fairway was his ball...about three feet from a very dead Canadian goose......He was quite shaken and felt bad but I convinced him to shake it off and finish the round, I dragged the goose off to the side and finished out.........Later that after noon on the very same hole but from the other tee, I joked with my brother about the "death hole" trying to make light of the situation.   He grabs his club and again hits a beautiful shot up and over the trees....a very distinct "boink" sound echo's through the trees and I said to him.."sounds like you hit a tree out there"  we walk around the corner and there laying about 6 feet from my brothers ball is a man...out could with a trickle of blood running down the side of his head.......they drove the ambulance right down the fairway and took the guy to the hospital.  Turns out he was looking for his drive from another hole and had wandered out onto our fairway.....he was ok but suffered a pretty nasty shot to the head.  Needless to say, I still cannot get my brother out on that course...in fact for a while I was worried he would give up the game all together...still refers to it as the worst day he ever had in any sport.

anyone else have any experience with something like this?

[Parker0065]

2 years ago I took out a blackbird on the 7th tee of my home course. I hit the drive a bit lower than normal and as the ball got about 120 yards off the tee I hurd a slight thud, the ball just kind of died and something black had fallen was all I really saw. It was nothing like when Randy Johnson took out that Seagull with a +90mph fastball with feathers flying all over the infield, I walked up the fairway and sure enough there was a dead blackbird lying there. Occasionally we get a Blue Heron that hangs out by a few of the course ponds, If I were to have taken that bird out I might have felt a little bad because they really are a beautiful bird, blackbirds are a dime a dozen :) Poor guy was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

[dak4n6]

Yesterday me and my boy almost became that guy. On #16 with a wall of 4somes in front of us we both hit strong drives that both barely caught a fariway bunker at the corner of a long dogleg left par 4.  We got up to our shots and were waiting for the green to clear when I hear 'ting!' and a ball comes slamming into the sand 5 ft from where we are standing.  We look back, and hear another shot, and this one comes in right above my head and just clears the lip of the bunker 10 feet from me.  So, we hit our shots into the group in front of us on the green and got the hell away from there.

The emphasis on fast play is making this game dangerous..

[Golfingdad]

As a teenager I did hit a guy once (sort of).  My friends and I had a couple of incidents where we would be waiting for the green to clear before hitting our second shots on a par 5 where we actually got yelled at by the group behind us.  The worst one was where they also hooted and laughed at me after I screwed up that second shot.  With that in mind, we were waiting on the tee of a short (250 or so) par 4 hoping for the green to clear, but then the group behind us was finishing their hole.  Afraid of getting yelled at or laughed at, I teed off, and of course (Murphy's Law, right) caught it perfectly.  Straight down the middle, as far as I could hit it, landed between the bunkers and rolled right up onto the green, hitting one of the guys in the foot.  He was rightfully upset, and proceeded to pick my ball up and throw it out over the fence onto the street.  I was shocked, but not overly pissed, because I was dumb too.  I tried to go apologize while walking up to the green, but he walked the next hole along the other side of the fairway never looking over, so I let it be, and that was the end of it.

I have also been standing next to a friend who got clocked in the head by a drive.  It was our junior high final tournament, on a sharp dogleg hole, and we were standing behind the trees at the corner of the dogleg.  The group behind us had no idea we were there and, therefore there was no 'fore' warning.  All I heard was the sound of a ball hitting what I thought was a tree and the sound of a full bag of clubs hitting the ground as my friend fell.  It was very scary.  They took him back to the clubhouse, got him some ice, and by the time the rest of us finished the nine (it was on the second hole) he was totally fine and ready to finish the round.  But I will never forget that sound.

[Wally Fairway]

Let's see I was hit once as a kid, when I was caddying - that turned out ok because it was a ball that bounced at least once before hitting me and I got a pretty nice tip out of it.

I've been hit by a ricochet off a tree when my playing "partner" didn't navigate between trees quite well enough.

But my favorite is when one of my cousins hit his sister in the head - she was standing a good 10 feet behind him, right where you should be standing and he managed to shank his shot almost straight sideways off the cart and it went back & hit his sister. I don't know if she was more mad about being hit or about those of us who were laughing; she wasn't hurt as much as stunned by being hit. Since that day the standard family joke has been that you have to watch Bill hit every shot because he has the ability to hit you from anywhere.

[zipazoid]

I hit my sister once.

That's what she gets for playing slow in front of me.

Actually, she was standing to the left (I'm left-handed) & about 10 yards ahead of the tee box & I friggin' nailed her with a drop-kick heeler, right in her side.

Dropped her like a sack o' potatoes.

[Stretch]

Reposted from elsewhere, a couple of months ago.

Quote:

Dispatched a guineafowl with a golf ball on the range the other day (quite by chance -- I probably couldn't hit an ostrich on purpose!) The attendant offered to retrieve and dress it for R20 ($3).



Like a lot of game birds, they're quite tough so you either have to braise them or prep quite thoroughly. In this case, marinated the ugly bugger in red wine and Coca-Cola for a couple of days then roasted him with potatoes, onions, garlic and butternut and washed it all down with a couple of appropriate bottles.



It's a rough life in Africa!

[jamo]

[QUOTE]Ever hit anyone (or anything living) with a golf ball?[/QUOTE] Their lawyers said they were alive when I hit them, but I still contend they were already dead. :-D Kidding.

[Yukari]

I would say, slow play is making this game dangerous.

Anyway, to the topic.  When I first started playing this game, a muni course I frequented had a many geese grazing every where.  Your shoe would be covered with geese dropping by the end of the round.  On one of the holes, I hit a bad drive.  A low screamer.  Yup, you guessed it.  Caught a goose that was about 50 yards in front of the tee box and killed it instantly.  All my playing partners were laughing and joking say "Goose Pate for dinner tonight".  But I felt bad, but not bad enough to give up the game.

Originally Posted by dak4n6

Yesterday me and my boy almost became that guy. On #16 with a wall of 4somes in front of us we both hit strong drives that both barely caught a fariway bunker at the corner of a long dogleg left par 4.  We got up to our shots and were waiting for the green to clear when I hear 'ting!' and a ball comes slamming into the sand 5 ft from where we are standing.  We look back, and hear another shot, and this one comes in right above my head and just clears the lip of the bunker 10 feet from me.  So, we hit our shots into the group in front of us on the green and got the hell away from there.

The emphasis on fast play is making this game dangerous..

[dak4n6]

Originally Posted by Yukari

I would say, slow play is making this game dangerous.

No. We played a 4 hr 10 min round, and still got hit into 3x.  And what's worse is that they were behind us from the start but didn't catch up to us until #13 where we started getting backed up. So only 6 holes of some moderate waiting  caused them to get impatient and dangerous.

[LuciusWooding]

A tree counts as a living thing, right? Ditto for grass?

My dad once hit a squirrel, but that's the only one I got.

[Yukari]

I am not saying you were causing slow play.  I am just saying, but for having to wait for the green to clear, you guys nearly got hit.  So the slow play in front caused a dangerous situation to occur behind.

Originally Posted by dak4n6

No. We played a 4 hr 10 min round, and still got hit into 3x.  And what's worse is that they were behind us from the start but didn't catch up to us until #13 where we started getting backed up. So only 6 holes of some moderate waiting  caused them to get impatient and dangerous.

[Yukari]

Some of the trees I hit were dead as in fallen branches.  As for grass in some of the courses I have played, let's just say it is debatable whether they were alive or dead.

Originally Posted by LuciusWooding

A tree counts as a living thing, right? Ditto for grass?

My dad once hit a squirrel, but that's the only one I got.

[Jimdangles]

Originally Posted by Golfingdad

As a teenager I did hit a guy once (sort of).  My friends and I had a couple of incidents where we would be waiting for the green to clear before hitting our second shots on a par 5 where we actually got yelled at by the group behind us.  The worst one was where they also hooted and laughed at me after I screwed up that second shot.  With that in mind, we were waiting on the tee of a short (250 or so) par 4 hoping for the green to clear, but then the group behind us was finishing their hole.  Afraid of getting yelled at or laughed at, I teed off, and of course (Murphy's Law, right) caught it perfectly.  Straight down the middle, as far as I could hit it, landed between the bunkers and rolled right up onto the green, hitting one of the guys in the foot.  He was rightfully upset, and proceeded to pick my ball up and throw it out over the fence onto the street.  I was shocked, but not overly pissed, because I was dumb too.  I tried to go apologize while walking up to the green, but he walked the next hole along the other side of the fairway never looking over, so I let it be, and that was the end of it.

I have also been standing next to a friend who got clocked in the head by a drive.  It was our junior high final tournament, on a sharp dogleg hole, and we were standing behind the trees at the corner of the dogleg.  The group behind us had no idea we were there and, therefore there was no 'fore' warning.  All I heard was the sound of a ball hitting what I thought was a tree and the sound of a full bag of clubs hitting the ground as my friend fell.  It was very scary.  They took him back to the clubhouse, got him some ice, and by the time the rest of us finished the nine (it was on the second hole) he was totally fine and ready to finish the round.  But I will never forget that sound.

A) nice shot. on in 1 on a par 4.

B) If im still that close to the group in front of me I wont worry about the people behind me. I am only as fast as the group ahead of me. You probably know this by now but maybe some knowledge will spread for other people worried about if they are playing slow. I have never actually been part of a group that needed to be passed. There is always someone slower ahead of you causing the back up.

[abrahamx]

Not me but a buddy that I golf with who sucks hit me in the upper arm once.  I was standing on the cart path by the ball washer.  About 10 feet in front of him and about 30 feet to his right.  He hit a ball almost directly 90* right and hit me in the arm.  Did not hurt all that much but later in the day and the next few days I got a huge bruise.  All I can say is its a good thing he did not hit me in the face.  Now he is always quick to say, I would not stand there.  If you cant stand on the cart path then you should not be golfing, but I need a partner so I still go with him.

[abrahamx]

One time I sliced a ball and was heading into a group but I could see it was going to land a good 10-20 yards away from them so I did not yell fore.  I see him fall down and acted like I did not see him.  When I looked at him a few seconds later he fell down again then started bitching at me for not yelling fore even though, as I told him, I knew it would not hit him.  He then proceeds to yell fore as I attempt my second shot.  I was by myself and he was in a foresome, otherwise it would have been on.  A-hole.

[evan01]

Hit a driver,  a flock of birds up at the ladies tee took off and pow I hit one of the birds. It was comical such a cloud of feathers. He didn't feel a thing!

[iacas]

Grass, almost every time I play.