Injured woman says golfer should have called ‘fore’

A golfer described in court how he ran to the club house when he heard his wife had been hit with a golf ball to find her with blood pouring from her head.

Minutes before, Philip Brennan waved to his wife on the balcony of the Old Conna Golf Club as he came down the fairway.

“I ran up the emergency stairs to the clubhouse. She said she could not see me. I was in a panic,” Mr Brennan told Mr Justice Michael Peart.

Mr Brennan who was giving evidence in the second day of his wife Mary’s action against a fellow golfer at the Co Wicklow club over the golf ball incident in 2009 said the accident happened at the highest point in their lives.

Mrs Brennan from The Park, Cabinteely, has sued a fellow member of Old Conna Golf Club, Patrick Trundle, as a result of being struck on the right top part of her head with a golf ball in April 2009.

She has claimed Mr Trundle should have called a warning, such as “fore”, after hitting his ball from the rough.

Mrs Brennan, with a golf handicap of 28, had only three weeks earlier become a full member of the Old Conna Golf Club, Ferndale Rd, Bray.

She told the court she started vomiting eight days after the incident and had double vision and headaches. She was admitted to St Vincent’s Hospital and was told she had had a stroke.

Earlier golf course architect Ronan Brannigan said Mr Trundle’s shot was “a very errant shot”. He said it is the player’s responsibility to know where the ball is going.

The case before Mr Justice Peart continues today.