Club pays out £125k after ball hits boy on the head

A UK golf club has paid out £125,000 to a man who was hit on the head by a golf ball when he was a teenage golfer at the club 10 years ago.

The club’s insurer will pay the money and the resolution involves no admission of liability.

There have been several noteworthy incidents where people have been hit by golf balls in the last decade, most notably involving Niddry Castle Golf Club in Scotland, where a golfer lost an eye in 2007. In 2011 he was awarded nearly £400,000, of which the club had to pay nearly £120,000 due to a lack of warning signs, and the golfer who hit the ball had to pay the remainder. However, in 2013, following an appeal by the club, the appeal court substantially increased – by an extra £200,000 – the amount the club had to pay.

Other significant cases include in 2014 a woman was awarded nearly £200,000 after she suffered a stroke when a golf ball hit her on the head, while she was standing on the clubhouse balcony at Old Conna Golf Club. In 2015 a golfer who had been hit on the head at Bellshill Golf Club was awarded £10,000 and in 2016 a golfer who suffered from a puncture to his skull, and bruising and bleeding to his brain, while playing at Workington Golf Club, lost his case against the club.

This latest case began some ten years ago on Portstewart Golf Club’s Riverside Course in Northern Ireland, when a teenage boy sustained a severe injury after being hit on the head by a stray ball.

He was on the first green when a ball played from another part of the course struck him on the head, according to lawyers in the case.

Proceedings were issued against the trustees of Portstewart Golf Club, alleging negligence.

Part of the action centred on claims that insufficient warning signs were in place at the time.

But following negotiations a settlement was reached at the High Court in Belfast on the basis that the club’s insurers will make the pay-out of £125,000 plus costs.