Anne Van Dam Driver Disaster - What Could Have Been Done?

Anne van Dam was left fuming after a bizarre incident at the KPMG Women's Irish Open involving a gallery rope and cart saw her driver snapped ahead of a crucial playoff.

The Dutchwoman had just birdied the final hole at Dromoland Castle to get into a playoff with Smilla Tarning Soenderby and Lisa Pettersson when she hopped into a cart with a tournament official to ride back to the 18th tee.

The pair went down the fairway instead a nearby path, but no one could have predicted the misfortune that followed.

van Dam, who has five LET victories to her name and was eyeing up another, lifted the gallery rope up for the cart to pass under but it came down around her driver and pulled the bag to the ground.

The 27-year-old, who boasts prodigious length off the tee, was clearly not impressed, but she composed herself to send her tee shot – apparently a 3-wood – straight down the fairway.

However, after a brilliant second, van Dam missed her eagle opportunity, while Soenderby converted hers to win her maiden LET title, the Dane calming rolling in for a three after her own magnificent approach shot. 

For van Dam, there are lessons to be learned: always take the cart path, and always have a back-up driver available.

So far as the latter is concerned, van Dam would have been able to replace her Callaway driver, but, incredibly, this was also broken by the airline on her way to the tournament.

"I'm not even sure why they're even driving down the fairway," said Sophie Walker, who was commentating for Sky Sports. "Why are they not driving down the paths?

"She's absolutely fuming. There's no reason be be riding that way. There's a path down the left-hand side."

Asked about van Dam's bad luck, winner Soenderby, said: "Pretty chaotic playoff hole when I got to that tee box. I'm really sorry for what happened to Anne. Like it's super unfortunate. She did quite well anyway."

Although in this case van Dam didn't appear to be hindered by not having a driver for the playoff, it could have been more costly - and it raises the question, should there be a rule in place for such incidents? 

No doubt Soenderby would not have been in favor of having her driver taken away, but, given van Dam's was broken through no fault of her own, would that have been one way to make the playoff fair?

It may be a while before we see such a freak accident occurring again, but golf has a habit of throwing up unusual incidents.