Danger on the Golf Course

Non-golfers think that since golf isn't a "contact sport", it must be very safe. To the contrary, there's plenty of danger in golf which can cause plenty of bodily injury if you aren't careful.

In Florida and South Carolina, you have to be wary of alligators. In many other states, you need to keep one eye on the ball and the other patrolling the landscape for snakes. And no matter where you play, you need to be alert to wayward balls, flying clubs, slippery hills, and runaway golf carts. With some of my friends, I put my life up for grabs every time we play together.

Though I've really only been psychologically damaged on the course, I've had some brushes with physical disaster that merit retelling. Both instances involve carts.

A few years ago, Jay Payne and I were playing the Lower Cascades at the Homestead. It's a mountain course, and some of the hills are pretty steep. We came upon a foursome on the tee early in the round, and they told us we could play through. Wanting to get out of their way in a hurry, I jumped off the cart and set about to grab my driver. Unfortunately, I hadn't depressed the emergency brake, and before I knew it the cart was careening down the hill. I chased after it, tried to jump inside to stop it, but it was heading directly for a massive tree. I bailed out in the nick of time, but the cart was still moving. It slammed into the tree and smashed in the front end.

Trying to save face in front of the astonished foursome, I got in and tried to reverse it back up the hill. It gurgled, but that cart was going nowhere. After closer inspection, I saw that the front axle had been ripped in two. I ran back to the pro shop, told the guy what had happened, and he just laughed and gave me another cart. He said that earlier in the day he had to fish a cart out of a creek.

The second incident was with Jay as well. We were playing at Wild Dunes in South Carolina, and he was in another cart. After curling around the cul-de-sac behind the tee box, his cart tried to pass mine, which was stopped. At exactly the same time as he was passing (at high speed), I was stepping out of the cart, and I didn't see him coming. My head got wedged between the tops of the two carts and stopped his cart upon impact. Needless to say, it hurt pretty badly. I felt like one of Gallagher's watermelons. He reversed the cart to undo the jam-up, but I wasn't the same the rest of the day. I shot about a zillion.

Has anyone else found danger on the golf course? I'd love to hear your stories.