Way Too Far: Golfer Bites Off Another Golfer's Finger After Argument Escalates
When it comes to the sport of golf, I’m firmly in the good-walk-spoiled contingent. I’m bored enough watching tournaments where announcers can’t stop talking about whether or not the crumbling frame of an aged Tiger Woods can break par, so why would I want to go out on a course and actually play worse than he did? Plus, I hear there are no windmills on the real thing, and that’s just a dealbreaker.
Yet, there are a legion of fans who are willing to take golf very seriously. They spend hours at the driving range, meticulously perfecting their swing. They spend their lunch breaks putting into paper cups on the carpet of their office. And now, they apparently bite off people’s fingers if things don’t go their way.
According to WFXT in Boston, a Friday fight between two golfers at the Southern Marsh Golf Club in Plymouth, Massachusetts, at 6:30 p.m. led to a “bite injury to the hand.”
That’s a very polite, police report-ish way of saying that someone’s finger had been gnawed off.
“Someone called 911 reporting that two men had gotten into a fight, and one person bit off the other’s finger,” WCVB-TV reported.
“When firefighters arrived at the scene, they discovered the victim had his finger bitten off to his knuckle.
“He was transported to a local hospital for treatment,” they added.
Fox News reported that the digit in question was the thumb, in case you were curious or anything.
Dispatcher audio from the incident was also released to the media.
“Be advised an update from the PD. Apparently there are two foursomes that got into an alteration and there’s been a finger that’s been bitten off…the victim’s laying on the main entrance road between three golf carts,” a dispatcher can be heard saying.
As of Monday, it was unclear what the condition of the victim was.
Meanwhile, the alleged 47-year-old perpetrator — who hasn’t been named — was arrested by police at the golf club.
He’s since been charged with mayhem, a particularly Massachusetts way of saying that someone has engaged in “malicious intent to maim or disfigure.” Which, yep, I’d say that qualifies.
If convicted, mayhem can carry up to 20 years behind bars.
There was also no word from authorities on whether alcohol was involved, although you could probably guess which way I would wager money, were I a betting man.
Look, for all I know, this had almost nothing to do with golf qua golf and everything to do with some sort of fight that went beyond the links. However, I know people who are obsessed about tennis who have never bit anyone, much less at a tennis court. Jokes aside — and let’s face facts, gruesome though this may be, there is a whole lot of macabre humor involved here — this is beyond disturbing. What kind of 47-year-old man thinks anything in this world is worth biting someone’s finger off over?
All I’m saying is that this sort of insane rage seems to happen when golf gets involved. Clubs get thrown, 50-something CFOs walk off in a huff like a kid who just blew a Little League save, and endless bores take up your time at dinner parties bitterly complaining about how they were about to score a personal best but sliced a drive into a bunker. And this is all discounting incidents where grievous bodily harm is involved.
So, please, golfers — start taking the sport less seriously. Don’t spend so much time at the driving range. Come to grips with the fact that Tiger Woods might better serve the game as an analyst in the booth than a player on the course. And, please — do consider adding a windmill or two at Augusta. It would make the whole place so much less stuffy.
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