Ray Ainsley, 1938 U.S. Open at Cherry Hills (Golf)

Ainsley, a club pro from Ojai, California, hit his approach on the par-4 16th into a stream fronting the green. Rather than take a penalty, he decided to play the ball from the water. As the ball drifted with the current, he slashed at it repeatedly, stubbornly refusing to take a drop. He finally carded a 19, which is still the U.S. Open record for the highest score on a single hole.
From the self-inflicted department
Bobby Cruickshank, 1934 U.S. Open at Merion:
On the 11th hole during the final round, Cruickshank’s second shot over a stream skipped off the water and ran onto the green. Jubilant, he threw his club in the air in celebration. He was knocked unconscious when it came down on his head.
Al Capone, 1928: The Chicago gangster loved to play golf, although he never shot under 100. But one day in 1928, at the Burnham Woods course
near Chicago, he managed to shoot himself — when the loaded revolver he kept in his bag went off and wounded him in the foot.
Mary, Queen of Scots, 1587: The most irrevocable golf disaster in history involved Mary, Queen of Scots, who angered Parliament by playing golf a few days after her husband’s death. Her apparent lack of wifely grief was used against her at her trial for plotting the murder of Queen Elizabeth I, and Mary was beheaded.

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