The biggest hazard for one collegiate golfer was in the tee box.
A freak accident forced a college golfer to withdraw from this year’s NCAA Men’s Golf Championship when a tee nearly went through his foot.
University of Oregon junior Gregory Solhaug was walking around the 11th-hole tee box at Grayhawk Golf Club in Scottsdale, Arizona, when he stepped on the wooden tee Saturday, Golfweek reported.
The tee reportedly went through his shoe and pierced his foot.
“Oregon student-athlete, Gregory Solhaug, suffered a foot injury during the second round of the NCAA Division I Men’s Golf Championships and was forced to withdraw from competition,” Rick Nixon, the NCAA’s associate director for media coordination, told the publication.
Witnesses confirmed to the Golf Channel that the tee impaled Solhaug’s foot on the 11th hole.
A photo posted on Twitter by Golfweek reporter Cameron Jourdan showed Solhaug on crutches with his left foot bandaged up.
Jourdan said in the tweet Solhaug would be able to walk again in a two weeks.
“I’ve been in golf nearly 50 years and have never seen anything like that,” said Oregon men’s coach Casey Martin, according to Golf Digest.
“He was in a lot of pain.”
Stepping on the tee wasn’t the only freak accident to involve Solhaug on Saturday.
One of the golfer’s shots when awry on an earlier hole and hit the mother of University of Texas senior Brian Stark. Erin Stark needed a splint after the shot fractured her finger, according to the Golf Channel.