Somehow my little girl and I got on the subject of injuries in sports. Not sure how this came about since she’s no sports fan, but maybe she’s a fan of sports injuries. I think we were watching a game, or maybe Sportscenter, when the subject came up. She asked me if I ever got hurt playing a sport to which I responded “Sure, but nothing serious.” I went over the time I took a baseball to the chest and chin thanks to a bad hop, and the time I broke my thumb playing basketball…but that’s about all I had. She knows, for the most part, my sports career is now relegated to the golf course.
It was at that point she wanted to know if I’ve ever gotten hurt playing golf. “Well” I tell her, “I once took a golf ball, that someone else hit, off the ankle. That stung a bit.” So then she said, “You should write something about golf injuries.” “What do you mean? I’ve already sort of done that before.” She responds with “No, I mean people getting hurt doing something stupid.” Now we’re talkin’. There’s nothing quite as funny as someone getting hurt doing something they shouldn’t be doing.
Anyone ever hear about Thomas Levet? Well back in 2011, after winning the French Open, he celebrated by jumping into a lake on the course. After that little stunt, he had to skip the British Open thanks to the broken shin he suffered after his victory leap. I’d have to agree with Colin Montgomerie when he said “I’ve always been suspect about people diving into lakes that don’t know how deep it is and what’s in there.”
Also from 2011, how about Robert Garrigus at the Tournament of Champions who ended up with a sore shoulder due to excessive fist pumping after sinking an eagle putt. Geez…thanks Robert. No wonder people think us golfers are wimps. We can’t even celebrate properly!
One more from the pros…how about John Daly who injured a rib trying to stop his swing when a fan attempted to take his picture at the Honda Classic. He actually sued the tournament organizers, but I couldn’t find any results of the suit.
But we know all the real stupid stuff comes from us – the average hack out on the public course. I’ve found plenty of ridiculousness out there, such as one guy who, doing his best golf cart impression of Erwin Rommel, hit a large root which bounced him out of his seat and broke his finger on the steering wheel when he landed. Or how about a guy who tried to hit a ball out of a tree only to step onto a rotten branch, fall about eight feet down and give himself a concussion.
But the probable grand daddy of them all is when NASCAR star Jimmie Johnson attempted “golf cart surfing” at a tournament. The result…of course…the idiot fell off. Yup, he broke his wrist.
Me personally, I’ve never suffered an injury on the course, nor has anyone I’ve played with. I’ve also never seen an injury occur on the course. But I’ve heard some stories! And now we’re looking for more. Anyone got any good ones? Let’s hear ’em! I’m sure some of you have seen someone out on the course get what they deserve.
Swing ’til you’re happy!
Why, just yesterday (while I was playing golf in the rain), i reached into my back pocket for scorecard and pencil and quickly removed hand from pocket uttering family unfriendly profanities. Seems in my haste to record my double bogey for posterity, I impaled my left forefinger on the pencil lead (not a real pencil but one of those plastic things with a lead point attached). Almost the entire chunk of lead was lodged in my finger right next to the nail. I had to wade through the blood with my other hand and use my fingernails as a tweezer to “get the lead out”. Through my tears, I was able to remove the lead tip successfully, and with the aid of a kleenex managed to eventually stop the bleeding so that I could continue with my game and keep my consecutive streak of brutal rounds of golf alive.
Hey Stupid (I mean that in the most respectful way possible), way to man up and finish the round! A lesser golfer would have quit and taken the next week off. The best part is, you knew you were playing terrible, but you finished anyway. You didn’t use it as an excuse to quit. You were stinkin’ it up and you knew it…but it made no difference. You are a true stinky golfer!
A guy I know was writing down the scores after a hole, but had his putter pinned between his arm and his body. Another guy walked up behind him and smacked the putter grip which results in the club head flipping up and breaking the nose of the unsuspecting scorekeeper.
As for manning up stories after an injury on the golf course, a friend of mine took a golf ball to the forehead from 175 yards. He was bleeding badly and his ears were ringing, but he finished out the round. We were only playing nine holes, but it happened while waiting on the second tee.