## Facts

- Ryoji Kurotsu, an experienced amateur golfer, played a round at Mission Hills Country Club in Kansas on October 10, 1991, without consuming alcohol.
- The eighteenth hole was a straight par 5 running parallel to a public road, separated from the road by a fence and trees.
- On the first seventeen holes, Kurotsu’s tee shots were consistently straight, with only occasional slight rightward deviation.
- At the eighteenth tee, Kurotsu made his usual preparation and intended to hit down the center of the fairway; he did nothing unusual.
- Florence Ludwikoski, a nonparticipant, sat in a car parked in a residential driveway across the road from the course, about 100 yards from the eighteenth tee, with the driver-side window open.
- Neither Kurotsu nor his playing partners saw Ludwikoski or knew anyone was located in that driveway.
- Kurotsu’s tee shot unexpectedly hooked sharply left, passed through trees and over/through the fence, and entered the open car window, striking Ludwikoski in the face/eye/head.
- Kurotsu did not warn before swinging because he perceived no one in danger; after realizing the shot was errant, he and his partners loudly yelled “fore,” but Ludwikoski did not hear it.
- Ludwikoski sued for negligence, alleging negligent hitting of the ball off-course, failure to warn before the shot, and an inadequate warning after the shot began to go astray.

## Issues

1. Whether a golfer breaches a duty of reasonable care by hitting an errant tee shot that leaves the course and injures a nonparticipant outside the course when the person’s presence and location were unknown.
2. Whether the risk of injury to a person situated across a road and outside the course boundary was reasonably foreseeable such that a duty to prevent the harm (or to warn before the shot) existed.
3. Whether an immediate post-shot “fore” warning, loudly given upon perceiving danger, can be legally inadequate merely because the injured person did not hear it.

## Decision

- The court granted the defendant’s motion for summary judgment.
- The court held the injury to the off-course plaintiff was not a reasonably foreseeable consequence of the defendant’s otherwise normal tee shot.
- The court found no triable evidence that the defendant’s manner of hitting the ball fell below reasonable care.
- The court held the defendant had no duty to give a pre-shot warning where he perceived no one in the line of flight and was unaware of anyone in the plaintiff’s location.
- The court held the post-shot warning was adequate as a matter of law under the circumstances.

## Legal Principles

- Negligence liability requires a duty and breach measured by unreasonable risk; foreseeability of the particular harm is central to duty and may be decided as a matter of law when material facts are undisputed.
- A participant in a sporting activity is not liable for highly improbable injuries resulting from ordinary mishits absent evidence of unreasonable conduct.
- A golfer’s duty to warn is tied to perceived risk to persons within the potential line of danger; absent knowledge or reason to know of a person in a remote, off-course location, no pre-shot warning duty arises.
- A warning issued promptly and loudly upon recognition of danger may be reasonable even if it fails to prevent injury.

## Conclusion

The court entered judgment for the golfer because the plaintiff’s off-course injury resulted from an extraordinary and unforeseeable sequence following an otherwise normal tee shot, and the evidence could not support a finding that the golfer acted unreasonably in either striking the ball or warning after the shot went astray.


Ludwikoski v. Kurotsu, 875 F. Supp. 727 (D. Kan. 1995)