RC Spectator blinded

[Deleted member 16999]

I'll not be following the Dunhill, will the Masters next week. It will be interesting to see if spectators are prevented from standing in certain areas following this or whether it is business as usual. May be you will only get standing areas in future at tees and greens? Sad if that is the case but perhaps that is the next step.

Doubt much will change, except for procedures put in place for dealing with anyone hit by a ball on a Tour event.
Spectators on tees? What if someone shanks their tee shot and what if somebody thinned a wedge around a green?

 

[Lord Tyrion]

Doubt much will change, except for procedures put in place for dealing with anyone hit by a ball on a Tour event.
Spectators on tees? What if someone shanks their tee shot and what if somebody thinned a wedge around a green?

I agree with you, it is impractical. Incidentally, I meant behind tees rather than the tunnel standing you sometimes see in the US.

I think cricket will be watching this with interest. 20-20 matches see big hits into the crowd every match and an accident there is pretty inevitable too.

 

[srixon 1]

Jokes about this poor woman's injury are a bit off. Not looking to blame anyone but people wear PPE for all kinds of things nowadays, perhaps they could/should advise spectators wear simple eye protection? Toughened wrap-style sports sunglasses (clear or tinted) etc like DDuval used to wear could have prevented such a serious injury?

You forgot the hard hat and safety boots 😂

 

[Don Barzini]

Tragic stuff this, poor woman. And feel sorry for Koepka as well.

It's got me thinking. I'm an occasional player, I hit plenty of wayward shots. I suppose I'm at risk of hitting someone, despite a shout of "fore" or "ball left" or whatever.

I was reading about this incident elsewhere and there was a case (I think someone linked to it earlier in this thread) of a guy getting hit with a golf ball and suing the other player and the club. The club and player were found partly responsible, each had to pay out. The guy who played the shot got hit with £80 grand (or similar).

Now, if I hit someone, I'm not good for £80 grand. So do I need to make sure I get insurance so I'm covered for this type of thing, rare and unlikely though it might be?!

(Apologies if this has been covered already, not read the whole thread)

 

[Bunkermagnet]

Tragic stuff this, poor woman. And feel sorry for Koepka as well.

It's got me thinking. I'm an occasional player, I hit plenty of wayward shots. I suppose I'm at risk of hitting someone, despite a shout of "fore" or "ball left" or whatever.

I was reading about this incident elsewhere and there was a case (I think someone linked to it earlier in this thread) of a guy getting hit with a golf ball and suing the other player and the club. The club and player were found partly responsible, each had to pay out. The guy who played the shot got hit with £80 grand (or similar).

Now, if I hit someone, I'm not good for £80 grand. So do I need to make sure I get insurance so I'm covered for this type of thing, rare and unlikely though it might be?!

(Apologies if this has been covered already, not read the whole thread)

I would say yes. My golf insurance has I think 3 mill 3rd party liability.

 

[rksquire]

Taken from the BBC website interview

Mrs Remande said she was "very angry" about a number of issues:

• She believes the marshals should have warned that a ball was coming as spectators would not have heard shouts of 'fore' from the tee.
• She says the marshals did not communicate that players were attempting to drive for the green instead of laying up on the fairway.
• She claims officials did not check on her or visit her after she was taken to hospital.
• She alleges there was a lack of safety warnings on the ticket and signage around the venue.

If you take them in order:

1/ There were shouts of fore (correct, but you must note that she is saying she didn't hear the shouts and that others on this forum confirm it's feasible these shouts wouldn't be heard at this distance - background noise, windo, etc.) and marshalls waving flags (marshalls wave flags from the tee box, if you don't have line of sight to the tee box either because of topography or you can't see in the crowd this is pointless. Maybe a marshall positioned in the landing area could do the waving but this wasn't the case). After that it is up to the spectator to be alert (a spectator at an event is there for 8-10hours, you may be watching one fairway when the ball comes from another hole, you may look up in the air and lose flight of the ball etc. Would her level of alertness prevented this? Did the other dozens of people around her take evasive action demonstrating their alertness?) . She may not have seen or heard those warnings but there is a limit to what is achievable (is there? There's been some reasonable suggestions on here already so yes there's a limit, but the question is has that limit been reached?)
2/ Seriously? Big hitting players may or may not take on a driveable par 4. Should the marshalls have spoken to the caddies to see what their players were going to do. Golfing nous should answer that one. Remember, she plays golf. (Correct, with golf nous you should think a golfer might take on the par 4, but from 300 yards away you have no idea of the club in hand and if they are laying up or going for it. But given this, knowing it's a driveable par 4 and players may take it on and knowing that there's a good chance they don't hit the green, do the organisers then say "we want them to go for the green but that also means the margin for error is greater so we make sure spectators aren't within reasonably accepted miss areas?")
3/ The European Tour dispute this, clearly we can not say either way
4/ ????? At a golf tournament there may have been golf balls flying around. Who could have seen that coming? That is nonsense. Again, remember she plays golf (However, nonsense it may be, but she may or may not have a point - the organisers will have considered spectator safety but how robustly was this reviewed and audited? Will their safety considerations in the round be accepted as best practice. If this happened here, the HSE would be currently reviewing this, asking for the risk assessments and documentation etc. and making a recommendation.)

She may have some legitimate complaints but at least 3 of those above are not in that category.

Let me preface (comments in bold above) this by saying I generally agree with you but to play devils advocate (as someone who works within an industry that's H&S mad, holds SSIP accreditation, is subject to audits etc.) I could dispute how some of your answers are presented, reading as fact but the nuance is more complicated and certainly will be if Lawyers are involved. I wasn't there so I can't say the safeguards were exceptional and the spectator is at fault; similarly I can't say they were unreasonable but the reality is somebody has lost an eye, people get hit with the ball with some regularity now it appears, so I'm not sure I'm comfortable with the conclusion of this being spectators fault. I've seen posts on here previous to this speculating that something needed to be done before something more serious happened; unfortunately, if forum posters can foresee this, surely tournament officials and organisers. can?

 

[Lord Tyrion]

Rksquire - my post would not stand up in a court of law, it is not meant to. Mine is a general post, as a golfer and as a sports spectator. I do appreciate that this will get down to fine detail now that legal bods are involved and that takes it into a whole new world

 

[Slab]

Let me preface (comments in bold above) this by saying I generally agree with you but to play devils advocate (as someone who works within an industry that's H&S mad, holds SSIP accreditation, is subject to audits etc.) I could dispute how some of your answers are presented, reading as fact but the nuance is more complicated and certainly will be if Lawyers are involved. I wasn't there so I can't say the safeguards were exceptional and the spectator is at fault; similarly I can't say they were unreasonable but the reality is somebody has lost an eye, people get hit with the ball with some regularity now it appears, so I'm not sure I'm comfortable with the conclusion of this being spectators fault. I've seen posts on here previous to this speculating that something needed to be done before something more serious happened; unfortunately, if forum posters can foresee this, surely tournament officials and organisers. can?

Has her condition worsened? That's not good news at all. Cant imagine what it must be like


edit: just had a quick google so hopefully its up to date and the news still saying "fractured eye socket and damaged eyeball"

Can only hope the loss of sight in the eye is temporary (since it happened no ones reported its permanent from what I can see, so fingers crossed when her eye heals she makes a good recovery and gets vision back)

 

[Maninblack4612]

This will never reach court. The golf authorities will be terrified of a judgement against them making it virtually impossible to run a tournament & will reach an out of court settlement. The only other thing which can be done is to have an official in the fairway just out of range who, as soon as he sees a signal from the tee, warns the relevant section of the crowd to turn away. If everyone in the gallery complies there is less likely hood of a serious injury. An players should definitely be penalized for not shouting / signaling, not that this is necessarily the case here.

 

[Rlburnside]

Has her condition worsened? That's not good news at all. Cant imagine what it must be like


edit: just had a quick google so hopefully its up to date and the news still saying "fractured eye socket and damaged eyeball"

Can only hope the loss of sight in the eye is temporary (since it happened no ones reported its permanent from what I can see, so fingers crossed when her eye heals she makes a good recovery and gets vision back)

Latest reports saying she has unfortunately lost the sight in the eye.

I like Garyinderry's idea of marshals on the tee and landing zones keeping in touch by radio, very easy to implement and although it might not stop every spectator being hit it would at least seem they are trying to address the problem.

 

[Jamesbrown]

All out ban on spectators on the ground. Must watch from a designated safety zone 1 mile away This is to be covered by Perspex. Hand sanitisisers and face masks to be worn so patrons don’t catch anything. If spectators wish to leave the safety compound, they must don cotton wool suits until they’re home.
Mushy soylent green only available as sustinence to avoid choking hazards.

 

[Slab]

I’m not comfortable with the added sensationalism to her accident I see reported online

The ‘I could’ve died’ stuff is completely unnecessary because if it really was that near death then surely it’s time for high-5’s all round because she’s alive! (after all what’s the loss of sight in one eye compared with death) otherwise it’s just to sensationalise and it just belittles the seriousness of the actual injury

 

[Bunkermagnet]

Problem is that the pros have been in general very tardy with shouting fore to worn of wayward shots. They are hitting it longer and I would suggest also more wayward as well, and as a result there has been greater numbers of spectators being struck and up until now, with no long lasting effects.
If pros were more active in shouting fore, others with them would also shout as well. We all have that occasional conundrum of whether to shout fore if one of our group goes wide and they don’t shout themselves.
Everybody in the professional game needs to stand and address this issue, it won’t go away and ignoring it won’t not only reflect badly but only lead to a more serious incident.

 

[Orikoru]

Problem is that the pros have been in general very tardy with shouting fore to worn of wayward shots. They are hitting it longer and I would suggest also more wayward as well, and as a result there has been greater numbers of spectators being struck and up until now, with no long lasting effects.
If pros were more active in shouting fore, others with them would also shout as well. We all have that occasional conundrum of whether to shout fore if one of our group goes wide and they don’t shout themselves.
Everybody in the professional game needs to stand and address this issue, it won’t go away and ignoring it won’t not only reflect badly but only lead to a more serious incident.

As has been mentioned, you can't hear someone shouting fore from 350 yards away. I figure this is why the players hold their club outstretched to that side as well, so there is a visual indicator. Most if not all the players seem to have adopted this. Not sure what else the players can do, unless you give their caddies megaphones!

 

[Slab]

Unfortunately it seems another spectator hit in the head today at Kingsbarns

 

[Blakey]

Just read that Tyrell Hatton's ball hit a spectator in the head at the Dunhill links.

 

[drdel]

I do sympathise with the poor women but ( I don't wish to be callous) the loss of sight in one eye is not the end of the world. I have mate from school who was hit accidently (by his own brother) and needed a glass eye. He has led a virtually normal life, drives, swims etc etc and is now in his 70s.

 

[Orikoru]

I do sympathise with the poor women but ( I don't wish to be callous) the loss of sight in one eye is not the end of the world. I have mate from school who was hit accidently (by his own brother) and needed a glass eye. He has led a virtually normal life, drives, swims etc etc and is now in his 70s.

Yeah she should just bloody get over it already.

 

[PJ87]

Just read that Tyrell Hatton's ball hit a spectator in the head at the Dunhill links.

Like buses .. wait for 1 and 2 show up and once

 

[Bunkermagnet]

As has been mentioned, you can't hear someone shouting fore from 350 yards away. I figure this is why the players hold their club outstretched to that side as well, so there is a visual indicator. Most if not all the players seem to have adopted this. Not sure what else the players can do, unless you give their caddies megaphones!

They can shout “fore” as loud as they can, and then others in their group should and would also follow suit.
A normal golf event is nowhere near as noisey as a Ryder Cup, so yes the Ryder Cup is a special case, but at a normal event if the pros shouted fore, others would too and then more people would be able to take cover if needed. To stick ones arm out in a lazy indication is just rediculous since less people would be able to see that over hearing one and many shouts.
Since they don’t do it as a matter of common practice, it doesn’t happen at a raucous Ryder Cup.