We saw yesterday that one of my students, softly tossing his club toward his golf bag on the cart, busted his nose when the club bounced off the cart, sprang back and hit him.  Carrying on with this topic of clubs causing injury, let’s look at other ways golfers have accidentally or carelessly been hurt by their clubs.  Let’s examine being careful, avoiding injury to play safe golf along with good golf.  Fortunately these instances may not happen often.  But if we can help reduce and even eliminate these angry to careless happenings, golf and golfers are safer.

After a bad shot I have seen a golfer walk over to his bag (a big tour staff like bag) “slam dunk” his club forcibly straight down into the bag.  Since these staff bags are wide, a club not touching any other clubs can go straight to the bottom and bounce off and shoot back straight up.  If the player is leaning over the bag when the club launches back up there is a high probability of hitting the player in the face and or on his hand.

Another club injury is after hitting a poor to bad shot, I have seen numerous times a player, likely with their throwing arm, lift the club straight up and instead of slamming it down on the ground, releases it and throws it down.  If the sole of the club hits the ground correctly, and causes the shaft to load, it can spring back up with good velocity and hit the player.  Get hit in the wrong place and we can have pain to serious injury.  I have also seen the shaft snap in two.

I have seen a golfer vent his anger on his driver by snapping the shaft over his knee.  A few seconds and steps after the shaft was broken his right leg was bleeding profusely down the outside of his pant leg which was sliced open like his leg.  After getting the bleeding stopped, he had a pretty good cut on his leg, and his pants were ruined.  After the round the player figured that when he snapped the club over his knee, he must have pulled the half in his right hand straight down causing the cut.  His deduction was he should have, when he snapped the shaft, pushed the now 2 shaft pieces both upward at the break point away from his knee.  Good deduction, but not breaking the shaft across his knee would be better.

One last point on breaking shafts more safely.  Hold it straight out in front of you with the head resting on the ground and just step on the shaft in the middle.  I have never seen an injury to the golfer doing it this way.  The best action is not to break it PERIOD!  If you can’t stand it in your site or bag, ask another player to take it till the round is over and give it away to a good cause like junior golf.

Another important issue where shafts can cause injury is their becoming damaged either in play or in storage.  I am specifically referring to the shaft getting pinched or kinked.  I have seen players pull a club out of their bag and see a pinch that likely happened because of the shaft got  bent when caught up on something when the bag was laid down in the trunk, or dropped when carrying it.  I have seen shafts get pinched when it slipped out of a player’s hands as he walked and stepped on the shaft. On the range I have seen a player who had a few clubs lying on the ground stepping on one accidentally.  Or, I have seen a player drop a club he was holding and it bounced off one on ground and he put a pinch or kink in the shaft.  Naturally, I have seen a player on the range after one or a few poor shots over zealously or angrily tap one of his clubs on the ground and put a good kink in it.

The point about kinks is that the shaft is now structurally unsound and subject to breaking when put under stress in being loaded in the backswing and/or unloaded in the downswing.  Breaking either way, the head half now becomes a flying out of control projectile that can hit the swinger or others in his group near him.  The safest direction is the broken piece flying straight forward down the hole.

One last point regarding kinks is feeling one under your grip.  On any club that you make a full swing you must re-shaft that club before ever hitting another shot.  I have seen a shaft snap in the downswing in the player’s hands and cause severe cuts.  I have heard of good players getting their hands cut so badly by a club snapping in the grip that they could not play and had a long re-hab.  I have heard of a case or two where promising careers were ended.

One final point on clubs snapping, this sometimes happens without the shafts being kinked.  The safest place to stand to watch another player’s shot is off to the face side and slightly behind the player.  Never stand directly behind them, even if that position does not bother them.  I unfortunately have to stand directly behind players when I am teaching as that is the only place I can check alignment, path and plane.  But when playing, I always stand off to the side.

I hope this has not scared you, but rather raised your awareness and carefulness level to help you play safer golf.  Tomorrow I will discuss more injuries with clubs and other circumstances that can happen accidentally while playing. If you know these incidences can happen, they can be avoided.

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