KEY POINTS:
Phil Shaw's ball-spotter job is something of a knockout.
Mr Shaw, 33, of Dunedin, was working for Animation Research at the United States Golf Open at Torrey Pines on June 13 when he was hit on the forehead by a wayward Phil Mickelson shot off the first tee.
It earned him seven stitches and a valuable souvenir. But it was embarrassment rather than concussion that followed the misdirected whack.
"It made a hell of a noise. And there was heaps of blood. The first 30 seconds I just held my head. But it didn't really hurt.
"It was sort of embarrassing. The Americans went a bit overboard, yelling out, 'Man down', and a guy pushing through saying, 'I'm a paramedic'."
Mr Shaw, group fitness manager at Les Mills, said he stayed on the ground at the insistence of his Animation Research boss, Ian Taylor, who thought Mickelson would give Mr Shaw something to say he was sorry.
He was right. The No 2-ranked golfer in the world asked if he was all right and then gave him a signed golf glove, also writing the word "sorry" on it.
The ball bounced backwards off Mr Shaw's forehead and stayed in the rough. Mickelson went on to score a par four on the hole, unlike playing partner Tiger Woods, who bogeyed the hole. Woods won the tournament and Mickelson finished tied for 18th.
With blood still pouring out of the wound, Mr Shaw was taken to a nearby hospital for treatment.
"I was sitting there and they were replaying the shot on the TV. These people were saying: 'That's him, the guy who is on TV' and pointing to me. It was on YouTube within five minutes."
His job as a ball-spotter was to get beside the driven ball as quickly as possible and, with a GPS system on his back, enable the ball's position to be sent back to a computer to create graphics for television coverage.
The seven-handicapper suffered no ill-effects from the stray shot, and said he was itching to cover the British Open at Royal Birkdale next month.
"It was the first time in 90 tournaments I have been struck. They have this thing called 'June gloom' over there and it was hard to spot. I lost it in the sky."
- OTAGO DAILY TIMES
