Fans were gathered around Kevin Stadler, Jonathan Hodge and Shaun Micheel on Friday to witness the latter holes of the second round of the WinCo Foods Portland Open, an Oregon-based Web.com Tour event.
And most of them were treated to exactly that.
One, however, left battered and bloodied, in need of six stitches.
Gossip surrounding the unfortunate accident surfaced Friday, and now, it appears that Stadler's club was responsible for the damage. As ESPN's Bob Harig reported Saturday, Stadler was on the 15th hole of the second round Friday night when he "slammed his club to the turf in anger and up against his foot." The club subsequently "broke somewhere near the bottom of the shaft," its head came loose, and then the broken piece "flew into the gallery" where it struck the spectator.
Stadler, whose father, Craig, won the Masters in 1982, missed the cut in the last regular-season Web.com Tour event and was not made available for comment, Harig said.
According to Shaun Micheel and Orlando Pope, a tour rules official who spoke with Harig, Stadler was apologetic for the incident.
"The player was absolutely shattered, and we did our best to keep his spirits up," Micheel wrote on Facebook. "This was not done on purpose, and we were astounded at the way the club was directed, but it shows you how dangerous it is to throw or break clubs. Each of us in the group learned something today!"
Pope echoed Micheel's astonishment, saying the incident "was a very freakish accident" and that Stadler is "devastated" and "had trouble trying to finish the round" because he was so "worried and felt so bad."
Tournament officials would not release the name of the spectator, but the fan was apparently treated onsite before being transported to a local hospital and receiving six stitches. Micheel himself recalled just how gruesome the spectator's injury appeared at first, describing the scene on Facebook:
It's been a while since I've seen so much blood. We stayed with (the spectator) for about 15 minutes before the EMTs arrived. The last I heard was that he had a possible skull fracture but that he was doing OK otherwise.
The tour event continued with its third round on Saturday at Pumpkin Ridge Golf Club.
