Bad Golfer sues for keeping his ball on the eye

This is a specific warning to all bad golfers out there - golf courses use yardage markers. Should your ball ricochet off one of these markers and, say, blind you, I’d say you aren’t entitled to damages.

Of course, that’s for the courts to decide.

BRENTWOOD – Paul Sanchez, a 67-year-old “occasional” golfer, sued Candia Woods Golf Links this week over an accident that left him blind in one eye.

Sanchez, of 20 Country Club Drive, Manchester, was golfing with two or three friends in September 2006 when a ball he hit bounced off a yardage-marker and “whacked him” in the right eye, according to his attorney, Barry M. Scotch.

“Before he could even – pardon the expression – blink, he was hit,” Scotch said. “It just ricocheted right back at him.”

In the lawsuit, Sanchez faults the course’s owners for failing to warn him about the markers, which are used by golfers to decide what type of club to use and how much effort to put into a swing.

Sanchez is seeking unspecified damages, claiming the markers were made of material too rigid to be safe for the course, according to the suit filed in Rockingham County Superior Court. He also blames the mishap on a lack of warning about the markers and improper placement in the middle of the fairway.

The suit contends the course didn’t warn Sanchez about the risk in the pro shop, on the scorecard or on any tee boxes.

Scotch said the markers should have been placed off to the side of the fairway and golfers should have been told they are removable during play.

Police at the time said Sanchez was playing the 11th hole, a 443-yard par-4.

The suit said it was Sanchez’s third shot on the hole. The marker was 150 yards from the green.

Court records show Sanchez suffered a fractured upper orbital rim, the bone behind his eyebrow, along with a blurring or total loss of vision. Sanchez was taken from the back nine by ambulance and transported to the Elliot Hospital in Manchester.

If it goes to trial, the case could be before a jury sometime in the summer of 2010. Scotch, of the Manchester law firm Backus, Meyer Solomon & Branch, said a golf expert was consulted before the suit was filed.

“It’s not a frivolous, run-it-up-the-flagpole-and-see-who-salutes kind of thing,” Scotch said.

No word on whether or not Lee Trevino has any plans on a lawsuit for not being warned that golf clubs make fantastic lightning rods.

–WKW