US Edition
Watch: DP World Tour golfer loses three clubs in tree after throwing driver in frustration
Joost Luiten embarked on a mission to retrieve his driver but only made matters worse during final round of DP World Tour Championship
Hackers can learn things from professional golfers, although Joost Luiten was not expecting to hand out this kind of salutary lesson here on Sunday.
No matter how much your game is annoying you, do not hurl your driver into a tree - and then leave another two clubs up in the branches whilst you try to retrieve it.
It must be wondered if the DP World Tour has ever witnessed such a surreal scenario - or indeed, if any course has anywhere. Luiten, the six-time Tour winner, was walking from the ninth tee during his final round, when the dismay at yet another errant tee-shot after bogeying the previous hole boiled over and he threw the offending club high into the air.
It became lodged and the seriousness of the situation and the consequences of his actions suddenly hit home. Luiten had arrived here at the Jumeirah Golf Estates with the ambition of finishing in the top 10 of the Tour’s order of merit to earn a PGA Tour card for the 2024 campaign, playing privileges on the US circuit worth a minimum of $500,000.
But now he was looking at ending the round not only with a depressing score but also without his TaylorMade, which a few years ago he listed as his favourite weapon in his bag. So he and his caddie embarked on a rescue mission, as seen in the video below.
The bagman tried to shimmy up the trunk unsuccessfully, before Luiten thought that with his deadly aim he could bring it down by chucking up a stick. The attempt failed. He went with a club and then another… “They both stayed up there as well,” Luiten said. “So I moved on with 11 clubs.” Not until he had kicked his bag and turned the desert air blue, that is. “What can I say, it was frustrating, a week when nothing went my way.”
Luiten eventually finished 48th in the 50-man field on three-over after a 73. It would undoubtedly have been worse but for his English wife, Melania-Jane, who is eight months pregnant with their first child. Some volunteers finally managed to extricate the clubs and Melania-Jane returned them to her red-faced husband on the 10th.