Case Against Golfer Dismissed

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31320, 16 March 1967, Page 19

Case Against Golfer Dismissed

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter— Copyright) LONDON. The length of Raymond Delo’s drive was the pride of Shirley Park (Surrey) Golf Club but not his direction, a high court judge was told. Delo, the club captain, drove off in the annual men versus women match, pulled his shot and struck his predecessor as captain, George Brewer, who was waiting 200

yards away on an adjacent fairway, in the eye. Brewer, aged 65, a retired timber merchant, sued for damages. Mr Delo said Mr Brewer had failed to heed his cry of “fore.”

Counsel said the shout was “worse than useless because the natural reaction is to look up.” The judge, Mr Justice Hinchcliffe, commented: “I never do that. I always put my head down.”

Brewer’s eye was badly damaged, his counsel said. He could no longer drive a car and bumped Into things on his left side.

The case was dismissed and Brewer was ordered to pay costs. Giving judgment, Mr Justice Hinchcliffe said the duty of a golfer must be based on reasonable foreseeability of injury to another player. It was quite clear from the evidence there was no warning notice at the eleventh tee that plyers should wait for fellow members on the sixth fairway. Neither was there a rule of etiquette practised at the club that they should wait.

“Mr Brewer says there are times when you should not play from the eleventh tee, and that must be right,” said the judge. “But it seems that each case must depend on its own facts.” Delo had never before hooked a ball on to the sixth fairway and had no reason to think that he would. “Even if the damage was foreseeable, the possibility of injury occurring involves a risk so small that a reasonable man would feel justified in disregarding it," he said.