Incident on the green

[David in FL]

  saevel25 said:

So what if it bounces off the ground. Not going to hurt anything.  If I know they are safe I rather not take the chance of them moving towards the ball.

And if it bounces off a tree, or a cart, or a sprinkler head, or the cart path, or.....? Do what you like, but if I hit a ball that is going somewhere I didn't intend it to go, and there are people that may be in the way, I'm not going to spend a lot time evaluating the likelihood that it'll hit someone. I'll err on the side of caution.

[krupa]

  saevel25 said:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fourputt

If it's an accident, then yell "Fore!" and most players will understand that we sometimes misjudge our shots.

I've learned really easily from Erik that you should only yell fore if the ball is coming at the person. You can easily cause that person to run in the direction of the ball if you yell fore when the ball isn't going to near enough to hit them.

Honestly if you think about it. A shot zone can be as much as 200 to 1500 square yards. The odds of a ball hitting that person is about 0.5% to 4.5%. If you see the ball is not near them why increase that chance?

That doesn't include errant tee shots, does it?  I had a ball land very close to me once because someone sliced his ball off the tee into my (parallel) fairway.  They didn't yell fore.  I had just hit my shot so walked over as they were jumping in their carts.  I finally caught someone's attention and told them what happened.  Their response was, "sorry, we didn't see you or we would have yelled fore."  My thinking is that if your ball's going into another fairway, you should yell fore unless you can see that it's empty.

[Hardspoon]

  rkim291968 said:

If a ball falls 10 yards behind me, I will turn around and give them a look.   If they repeat it, I will yell something like "please wait until we are out of the way."

I think this is important - there is a big difference between a one-time mistake (particularly on a "blind" hole or one with a strange cart-path design) and repeatedly doing it.

Relevant Ian Fleming (James Bond author) quote:

"Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action."

[Fourputt]

  saevel25 said:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fourputt

If it's an accident, then yell "Fore!" and most players will understand that we sometimes misjudge our shots.

I've learned really easily from Erik that you should only yell fore if the ball is coming at the person. You can easily cause that person to run in the direction of the ball if you yell fore when the ball isn't going to near enough to hit them.

Honestly if you think about it. A shot zone can be as much as 200 to 1500 square yards. The odds of a ball hitting that person is about 0.5% to 4.5%. If you see the ball is not near them why increase that chance?

I strongly disagree with that.  I've never seen anyone run anywhere when I yelled "Fore!".  I certainly don't.  I'll either duck and cover or if possible, step behind a tree on the side away from the sound.  It would be incredibly stupid to run to safety when you don't have a clue where "safe" is.  Most of the time people just stand there and look around, also a dumb thing to to do.

The best thing to do if you hear someone yell is to turn away from the sound and cover your head.

[Pete F]

  krupa said:

That doesn't include errant tee shots, does it?  I had a ball land very close to me once because someone sliced his ball off the tee into my (parallel) fairway.  They didn't yell fore.  I had just hit my shot so walked over as they were jumping in their carts.  I finally caught someone's attention and told them what happened.  Their response was, "sorry, we didn't see you or we would have yelled fore."  My thinking is that if your ball's going into another fairway, you should yell fore unless you can see that it's empty.

As a chronic slicer, does that mean I should just yell fore before I hit unless I'm the only one on the course?

[krupa]

  Pete F said:

Quote:

Originally Posted by krupa

That doesn't include errant tee shots, does it?  I had a ball land very close to me once because someone sliced his ball off the tee into my (parallel) fairway.  They didn't yell fore.  I had just hit my shot so walked over as they were jumping in their carts.  I finally caught someone's attention and told them what happened.  Their response was, "sorry, we didn't see you or we would have yelled fore."  My thinking is that if your ball's going into another fairway, you should yell fore unless you can see that it's empty.

As a chronic slicer, does that mean I should just yell fore before I hit unless I'm the only one on the course?

I'm also a chronic slicer and if I see my ball going into another fairway, I yell fore.  Luckily for me, I rarely get the elevation required to get over the trees that usually separate fairways.  There are a couple holes, though, where a slice could be a bad day for someone else.

Here's one in particular.  If you're teeing off at the red circle, you can't see people at the blue circle but if you slice, you can come awfully close...

[sjduffers]

  colin007 said:

ten yards away??  thats not being hit into....

Ten yards, slightly deeper in the green than I am standing (meaning over my head) and to my side, from 200 yds out or so? What is your definition of being hit into? Getting nailed between the eyes?

I can't believe you don't see anything wrong with this.  Let me be sure you are never in a group behind me, or I need to bring a kevlar jacket and a helmet, jeeze... (unless there is some sarcasm in your comment that I failed to detect).

[Lihu]

  saevel25 said:

Quote:

Originally Posted by colin007

ten yards away??  thats not being hit into....

I disagree. I don't really want to hear the ball land near me. If I am putting and I hear the thud then I consider it to be hit into. If the ball rolls up, I don't really care much because a rolling ball will do no harm.

Right, hitting onto a green when someone is putting? I can't imagine. . .

[sjduffers]

  Lihu said:

Right, hitting onto a green when someone is putting? I can't imagine. . .

Yet, that is exactly what happened there, as I was still in the process of walking off the green and I was still on the green, heading in the general direction of the player who hit.

I can't believe what I am reading in this thread.  Some folks here have less patience than a wild animal in rut, apparently.

That guy shouldn't have hit it until after I had walked another 40-50 yards, just in case he sliced his ball, as I am sure, most of you, good or bad players, have sliced a fairway wood from 200 yards.

[Lihu]

  sjduffers said:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lihu

Right, hitting onto a green when someone is putting? I can't imagine. . .

Yet, that is exactly what happened there, as I was still in the process of walking off the green and I was still on the green, heading in the general direction of the player who hit.

I can't believe what I am reading in this thread.  Some folks here have less patience than a wild animal in rut, apparently.

That guy shouldn't have hit it until after I had walked another 40-50 yards, just in case he sliced his ball, as I am sure, most of you, good or bad players, have sliced a fairway wood from 200 yards.

Yeah, there should be some element of civility on the course. Even though you were walking off the green, it seems like the golfer could have waited another 10 whole seconds for you to get to safety?

[imsys0042]

  sjduffers said:

Yet, that is exactly what happened there, as I was still in the process of walking off the green and I was still on the green, heading in the general direction of the player who hit.

I can't believe what I am reading in this thread.  Some folks here have less patience than a wild animal in rut, apparently.

That guy shouldn't have hit it until after I had walked another 40-50 yards, just in case he sliced his ball, as I am sure, most of you, good or bad players, have sliced a fairway wood from 200 yards.

No one should ever, ever hit when a person is in range, as best as you can determine what the range is.   That includes getting clear of the green and going to the next hole.   What burns me is the people on the 18th hole who decide to put everything away and fart around with their bag after you've been waiting instead of getting clear.   But I can't say I've ever hit anyway.   Wait until they drive/walk off.

[rkim291968]

But the truth is, some over confident golfers will hit while people are still walking away from green, or in their cart near green, whatever.   Even PGA tour members will miss green approach shots.   Why would some amateur golfers regardless of their HI hit while people are still in and around green is beyond me.   They can't wait 10 - 20 more seconds?   They are not only being impatient but also being arrogant.

[AbsoluteTruths]

This reminds me about the last round I played. I hit a severe push slice that I saw was heading toward the green of a hole two hole behind us. There was a group of four

young men putting. I saw them start to look around and I waved to them and yelled sorry but they were so far away I do not think they heard me. They waved back

and did not seem upset. When I went over there the the ball was about 4 feet from the cup right where they were standing. Woops.

[Fourputt]

A lot of courses have holes where the only way to exit the green is actually walking toward the normal line of play for that hole.  My former home course had a hole like that, and my current one has a couple such holes.  This is the 15th green on my former course (somehow they managed to shoot the image on the same day that they did the spring aeration and sanded the greens, but before they dragged the sand, so it looks like crap):

The red circle is where carts and trolleys are usually parked, and you have to walk back 30 yards from the green to the parking spot.  The area marked in green is the area where the white tees are generally located.  We always had to be careful here because anything hit to the right puts the tee area right in the target zone, and you can't see it well because of the trees.  Basically, if an approach shot goes right when there is a group on the tee, you just automatically yell "FORE!"

[rkim291968]

  David in FL said:

Quote:

Originally Posted by saevel25

So what if it bounces off the ground. Not going to hurt anything.

If I know they are safe I rather not take the chance of them moving towards the ball.

And if it bounces off a tree, or a cart, or a sprinkler head, or the cart path, or.....?

Do what you like, but if I hit a ball that is going somewhere I didn't intend it to go, and there are people that may be in the way, I'm not going to spend a lot time evaluating the likelihood that it'll hit someone. I'll err on the side of caution.

Agreed.   Error on side of caution ... and CYA, too.   Most golfers expect others to yell fore when ball is hit to their general direction.

[Fairway_CY]

For the life of me, I'll never understand why someone would hit into another group when they're clearly visible.  It just makes zero sense.  If you're waiting now, and you rush to hit up instead of waiting an extra few seconds... you're just gonna be waiting again anyway.  In the case of the OP, there's zero reason for the group behind to hit into them while the other group is still walking away from the green.

I took my son out to play on a short 9 hole course when he was about 12 and a guy with his wife and kids was coming down an adjacent fairway as we were on a tee box to the left of the green he was hitting into.  He could clearly see us if he was paying any attention at all.  As I was putting my club back in my bag and my son was walking to the tee, a ball landed 3 feet from him, caromed off a rock wall, hit our cart and landed in the trees between the green and our tee.  I was livid and I waited for him to come looking for his ball so I could say something to him.  He basically told me he didn't care and to stop complaining because he didn't hit either one of us.

If you're driving a car and you're waiting to make a left turn across a 2 lane highway... are you going to try and make that turn if you see cars coming at you, or are you going to wait until it's safe to turn?  Same thing here.  Just common sense.

I've seen someone hit.  It's scary and certainly not worth the risk.  Wait a few extra seconds and do everything you can to ensure the safety of those you're sharing the golf course with.  It's not a difficult thing to do.

CY

[mdl]

One note on the driveable par 4. The last thing we need is even more people waiting for groups to clear the green/fairway because they're ridiculous fantasy shot can reach because they think that's good etiquette. One of the most annoying pace of play things is when a player in front of you who hasn't carried a drive longer than 200 yards all day sits in the fairway 210 from the pin holding his 3w waiting for the green to clear. That's poor etiquette (slowing the pace of the course), not good etiquette (not "hitting into" the group in front of you).

[AbsoluteTruths]

  mdl said:

One note on the driveable par 4. The last thing we need is even more people waiting for groups to clear the green/fairway because they're ridiculous fantasy shot can reach because they think that's good etiquette. One of the most annoying pace of play things is when a player in front of you who hasn't carried a drive longer than 200 yards all day sits in the fairway 210 from the pin holding his 3w waiting for the green to clear. That's poor etiquette (slowing the pace of the course), not good etiquette (not "hitting into" the group in front of you).

I am not good enough yet to judge the yardage of all my clubs anywhere near accurately. So I am the one in the group in front of you who has my 3w in my hand not knowing

if it will go 10 yards or 200. I am erring on the side of caution and courtesy to not hit till I know for sure I will not hit or irritate anyone.

I am also surprised at the number of people on this thread that will get so upset about an accident.