Golfers losing balls is a common enough occurrence, but Dutch professional Joost Luiten took mislaying equipment to another level, when he lost three clubs up a tree at the DP World Tour Championships at Dubai.
Days after Rory McIlroy's tee shot landed on a spectator's lap, Luiten became frustrated after making a bogey and threw his driver at a tree, where it got stuck. He threw another club in a bid to retrieve the driver, but the tree's thick branches and leaves caught that as well.
As a tournament official climbed the tree and threw sticks at the well-lodged clubs in vain, Luiten continued his own rescue efforts by launching a third club at the tree. A couple of throws later, he had lost a third club.
"I tried to get it out by throwing some other clubs at it and [two] other clubs got stuck up the tree, so I couldn't get them out," said Luiten, who has won six European Tour titles.
Luiten tried jumping and hitting the tree with a standard-bearer's sign, before eventually giving up. He played the rest of the hole with 11 clubs, before a volunteer rescued the lodged clubs.
The Dutchman ended the championship three-over-par, placing third from the bottom. Dane Nicolai Hojgaard won the tournament.
"That sums up my week nicely," Luiten added.
Reuters