Pro struck in head by ball shares photo of effect — and it’s stunning

Aaron Wise is OK. And was feeling well enough to post to Instagram. 

“Feeling okay. hopeful to be able to play tomorrow,” he wrote Friday night. 

His hat, however, had a red scar. 

Some two hours earlier, during Friday’s second round of the PGA Championship, Wise was in good spirits, too, following a potentially scary incident on the 7th hole at Southern Hills. There, Wise had been struck on the right side of his head by a Cameron Smith tee shot from an adjacent fairway, but he played his final two holes (he started on the back nine), received treatment after his round and also told Golf Channel he was good. 

But how do we fully know he was hit on the right side of his head? Look at the photograph he also shared. 

There, on the right side of his white Adidas cap, just below the top, was a red mark. That was the Sharpie mark (!!!) from Smith’s ball — and it had scratched itself into Wise’s hat. 

“Line from Cam Smiths ball,” Wise also wrote on the post. 

The sequence came after Wise bent down to identify a ball and was hit by Smith’s, from the 2nd hole. Joel Dahmen, one of Wise’s playing partners, told GOLF’s Dylan Dethier that the ball ricocheted forward another 40 yards and that Wise went down to a knee.

“We were in that right rough area, and he just got domed,” Dahmen said.

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From there, an official checked on Wise, gave him a water bottle to place on the back of his head, and after 30 seconds, he hit his second shot on the 7th. After the round, Wise received medical attention and told Golf Channel that he felt fine, though in the moment he felt “a little bit of ringing” in his head.

“He was definitely shook getting into his next shot, for sure,” Dahmen told Dethier. “But by the time he got up to the green he was fine.”

Fine enough to post to Instagram. And play. At 1:13 p.m. Tulsa time, he teed off for his third round. 

“Nothing bounces like an adidas golf hat .. or maybe im just that hard headed,” Wise also wrote on Instagram. 

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Nick Piastowski

Golf.com Editor

Nick Piastowski is a Senior Editor at Golf.com and Golf Magazine. In his role, he is responsible for editing, writing and developing stories across the golf space. And when he’s not writing about ways to hit the golf ball farther and straighter, the Milwaukee native is probably playing the game, hitting the ball left, right and short, and drinking a cold beer to wash away his score. You can reach out to him about any of these topics — his stories, his game or his beers — at nick.piastowski@golf.com.

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