GOLF COURSE ACCIDENTS

Greymouth Evening Star, 17 November 1934, Page 2

GOLF COURSE ACCIDENTS

WARNING SHOUT OF “FORE!” Sheriff Berry, of Glasgow, has held that provided a golfer gives the familiar warning shout of “Fore,” he is absolved from liability for injury to a person on the course who is struck by his ball (says the London “Daily Telegraph.”) The person injured in the case at issue was working on the course about 30 yards in front of a tee. The defendant stated that after shouting “Fore” he pulled his ball badly, with the result that it struck the workman on the cheek. The Sheriff laid down that the mis-hitting of a golf ball was a fairly common thing even with very good players, and seemed to be insufficient in itself to infer liability on the ground of negligence. The point—an important one both for golfers and for members of the public using a right of way across courses—has never been the subject of decision in the English courts. In a case which came, before Mr Justice Swift in May, 1922, it was submitted by counsel, Mr Croom-Johnson, K.C., that there was no obligation upon a golfei’ to give a warning cry, but no judicial pronouncement on the point was made.

In July of this year it was ruled by an American Court, in a'case in which a caddied was seriously injui’.ed by a ball, that a shout of “Fore” was not an adequate warning. Another American judge, awarding a woman £l5O, ruled that a slice on a golf ball is not an “act of God”; while a third awarded an injured caddie £2,000 because the player had not given him timely warning. Practically every golf club of standing in England insures its members against third party risks, both on their own course and when visiting other courses. In the majority of cases the decision to take this action followed a judgment of the present Lord Chancellor (as Mr Justice Sankey) in 1922. The case was one in which the proprietors of the St. Augustine’s links, Ltd., Ebbsfleet, were made jointly liable with a player for an injury to a passing taximan, caused by a sliced ball. He declared them negligent in setting down the course in proximity to a public road without affixing a warning notice. Speaking as a golfer himself he said a good player was liable to slice a ball, but “a bad player did not slice at all—because he did not hit the ball.”