Golfer loses three clubs in tree after throwing driver in frustration

Voice over: Michael Robles
Writer: James Corrigan
Video editor: Lance Keller
Golfer loses three
clubs in tree after
throwing driver in
frustration
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.