It was 75 degrees and sunny when our foursome reached the 17th tee at Chambers Bay earlier this month.
The first three members of our group hit before something unexpected happened: I was stopped by a man walking his dachshund directly on the green.
We yelled, thinking this must be some misunderstanding. There is a public walking trail nearby, and perhaps this person was unfamiliar with the concept of golf. Soon it became apparent that he was not right of mind. We waited 20 minutes at the tee, now three groups sitting on the tee box, as a course ranger approached the man. He wouldn’t budge. One of our caddies suggested he could have a weapon, which was enough for me to take my ball off the tee and head straight to the 18th hole.
There are reports of elk stampedes, baboons chasing golfers down fairways, swarms of bees creating momentary panic and alligators guarding golf balls.
That made me think about other random stoppages golfers have faced over the years. After some research, it’s clear animals dominate this category. There are reports of elk stampedes, baboons chasing golfers down fairways, swarms of bees creating momentary panic and alligators guarding golf balls. Birds, squirrels and other critters have actually displaced those balls into better or worse positions. (My personal favorite is from the 1998 Players Championship when a seagull deposited Steve Lowery’s tee shot into the lake after the ball initially found dry land on No. 17.) But for a real sense of danger, consider that two lionesses once brought down a fully grown giraffe right in the middle of the fairway at Skukuza Golf Club in South Africa. Players had to hit around a pack of hyenas feasting on the carrion.
And then nature has other creative ideas for stopping play: a sinkhole once consumed an entire green at a tournament in Missouri; volcanic ash caused cancelation of an event in Iceland; the Loma Prieta earthquake of 1989 in California suspended play in the World Series of Golf; desert golf has produced many instances of players injuring themselves after a swing follow-through caught the arm of a cactus; and spontaneous snow has arrived on the PGA Tour in places such as Arizona and Georgia. Hail and tornadoes are more common but among the most dangerous in the bizarre stoppage realm.
And, of course, there are humans. We break the focus of professional golfers on a recurring basis, with our cell phone rings, or moving when we should stay still. Sometimes it goes beyond that. At the 2021 U.S. Open, a streaker ran onto the 13th hole at Torrey Pines with a club and a pair of balls – golf balls – before being apprehended by security. Fights occasionally break out between golfers emboldened by the fact they have a set of metal sticks at their disposal. And less regularly, airplanes and blimps have made emergency landings, or have crashed, in the field of play.
As if this game needs to be more challenging.
Sean Fairholm
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