(Reuters) - Golfers losing balls is a common enough occurrence but Dutch professional Joost Luiten took mislaying equipment to another level when he lost three of his clubs up a tree at the DP World Tour Championships in Dubai on Sunday.
Days after Rory McIlroy's tee shot landed on a spectator's lap, Luiten, frustrated after making a bogey, threw his driver at a tree where it got stuck.
He threw another club in a bid to retrieve the driver but the tree's thick branches and leaves caught that as well.
As a tournament official climbed the tree and threw sticks at the well-lodged clubs in vain, Luiten continued his own rescue efforts by launching a third club at the tree.
A couple of throws later he had lost a third club.
“I tried to get it out by throwing some other clubs at it and (two) other clubs got stuck up the tree so I couldn’t get them out,” said Luiten, who has won six titles on the European Tour.
Luiten tried jumping and hitting the tree with a standard bearer's sign before eventually giving up. He played the rest of the hole with 11 clubs before a volunteer rescued the lodged clubs.
The Dutchman ended the championship three-over-par, placing third from the bottom. Nicolai Hojgaard won the tournament.
"That sums up my week nicely," Luiten added.
(Reporting by Chiranjit Ojha in Bengaluru, editing by Pritha Sarkar)
