The Worst Outcome From The Ryder Cup

Corine Remande. Last week she was just a spectator with a love for golf. Now she is maybe one of the most talked about women in golf for the past week. But, as is always the case with these things, it is not for a positive reason. She is the extremely unfortunate lady who was hit by a tee shot from Brooks Koepka.

The event organisers had decided to bring the tee on the 6^th hole at Le Golf National, and Koepka took the invitation to try and drive the green. In all honesty, he didn’t exactly hit a bad shot. Looking back at the replays, he’s maybe ended up around 6 or 7 yards from getting a nice friendly bounce towards the green what could be a game-changing eagle putt. As it is, Ms. Remande took the full force of the shot, and from the sounds of it, has lost all sight in her right eye.

It is, without a doubt, a horrible accident which no one would wish upon anyone. However, it is not the first time that someone has been struck by a golf ball at a professional event, and it won’t be the last either. Since the event, and the extent of the injury suffered has come to light, people have started to point fingers all over the place. It’s being bounced around the media that Ms. Remande is going to take legal action with the event organisers of The Ryder Cup. Somehow though, I would have thought there will be a term or condition on purchase of the tickets that people are there at their own risk, which I fully agree with. You could be at your local golf club and get struck by a wayward shot, so why would this be any different. People think that just because these guys are professionals that they’re robots….think the Americans proved that theory wrong quite nicely last week in Paris!

Ms. Remande has also made claims that the marshals should have protected her better, and that there were no shouts of “fore” that could be heard. Upon watching the tee shot back, there are several clear, loud shouts, and there will have been a marshal behind the tee points at the direction of the flight of the ball. Surely, with the amount of people around, someone near to Ms. Remande must have seen the ball travelling in that direction, and natural instinct for any golfer is to cover their head and duck.

I totally understand how angry and frustrated Ms. Remande must be feeling, what has happened to her is awful. But this is just part of being at a live sporting event. She must have realised this before she entered the event. People at football games or cricket matches will often have the ball flying into the crowd, but very rarely do you see anyone getting injured; and the same with golf. All we can hope is that the health and safety don’t get themselves involved and ruin the great game that we all love.