The Slice: Golf isn’t supposed to be a contact sport

People don’t always think to yell “Fore!”

“I have never been hit by a golf ball but I’ve seen it happen,” wrote Bob Witte of Sandpoint. “Several years ago while playing in a tournament on the coast, a player in our foursome sliced his drive into an adjoining fairway where the ball struck a woman on the head. We went over to check her out but she said she was OK and continued to play.

“A few hours later the same member of our group hit another errant tee shot, this time hitting THE SAME woman directly on the forehead. This time she wasn’t as OK and had to be carted back to the clubhouse for medical attention.”

The culprit in Bob’s foursome quit right then and swore he would never play golf again. “As far as I know, he never has.”

Terry Jacobsen and her husband had been married six months and they were playing golf.

They were on the 10th hole. “I was standing about 35 feet forward on the left side at the women’s tee box,” she said.

Her husband’s tee shot hooked directly at her. “Not having time to react or move, the ball smashed into my face just above my teeth and into my nose.”

As blood poured from her wound, her husband rushed to get help. The course pro, who had given her husband a lesson just the day before, arrived in a golf cart. “His first question was ‘How was he hitting the ball up until now?’ ”

Terry and her husband are still married and playing golf together. “I just stand in back now.”

Deer Park’s Gus Kruger once got a call reporting that his wife, Joyce, had been hit in the head by a golf ball.

When Gus got to the scene, he found Joyce being attended to by paramedics. They were wiping blood from her face and hands.

The thing is, this happened at a miniature golf course.

“Some kids were screwing around and one boy hit a ball really hard and nailed her right in the forehead.”

Today’s Slice question: Ever sung Spokane’s praises loud and long to distant friends or relatives, and then after they come for a visit you wind up apologizing to them on Spokane’s behalf after they experience one astonishing demonstration of rudeness and inexplicable hostility after another?

Write The Slice at P. O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210; call (509) 459-5470; email pault@spokesman.com. A friend of Stan Hughes’ wife recently asked her if Stan was OK. She hadn’t seen him in The Slice in some time.