Golf Clubs On Us

12 year old golfer assaulted with golf club by fellow player at Phoenix JGAA golf tournament

Phoenix AZ: During the Phoenix City Junior Championships at Cave Creek Golf Club, a 12 year old golfer suffered from a physical assault from a fellow player. According to witnesses (playing partners), the 11 year old assailant ran to the tee box to hit her driver, and then grabbed a golf club by the head and swung the shaft into her fellow player’s abdomen.

“Why did you do that?” asked one of the playing partners while shaking her head in disbelief. The assailant responded by laughing at the victim, and walked away as if nothing happened. The 12 year old victim described the painful sensation as incapacitating, and was literally stunned from the pain.

In the victim’s written words for the investigation, she states that: “Walking down the fairway I did not talk to her (assailant), I was very upset with her and cannot believe what she did to me. I tried to keep my distance from her as she would chase me around the fairway laughing about hitting me. On the 16th green once I finished out my 10-footer for birdie, she (assailant) tried to come over to me and take another swipe but I stopped her putter so that she wouldn’t hit me AGAIN.”

She continues, “At the 17th and 18th hole, I was still in pain from the hit in my stomach, causing me to bogey the last 2 holes. I ended up losing to her (assailant) by 2 strokes and she took the championship home.”

After the game, while waiting for the trophy presentation in the cafeteria, the victim was still in shock by the incident. “She (assailant) also NEVER sat down and ate lunch with our division after play. The table was full and nobody wanted to sit next to her after what she had done to me.”

After the event, the victim’s family reported the incident to the tournament director in charge. The victim wrote, “The tournament director was the one who we told after the Phoenix City Junior Championships and she believed our side of the story (on what happened on the 16th teebox).”

Before leaving the tournament site, the victim’s concerned father spoke to the playing partners who were on the 16th tee box. All of them confirmed that the assailant indeed swung her golf club into the victim’s abdomen, and witnessed her doubled up in pain while the assailant was merely laughing about her deliberate assault to a fellow player.

According to the USGA rules committee member, “Purposely striking another player with a club, either by throwing the club or swinging the club is a serious breach of the Rules of Etiquette – see Decision 33-7/8…..if the player committed the serious breach of Etiquette you describe, the player should be disqualified – see Rule 33-7.”

This was a serious incident and the victim’s father wasted no time in letting the proper authorities know about it. On that same day, he wrote an email to the tournament director describing details of the incident. The victim’s close friends, as avid supporters of the child’s golf games, also heard about the incident. Concerned about her welfare, they advised to file a formal criminal complaint to the local police.

On June 21st, at Pinnacle Peak Country Club, the victim along with her family were having a practice round for the sectional tournament of the USGA Junior Girl’s Championships. After the practice round, the father of the assailant approached them and talked to the victim’s father in a very threatening manner, clearly displaying that he will resort to physical violence in his belief that his daughter was innocent about the attack.

THE COVER-UP BEGINS

When news of the incident reached Sean Ferris of the JGAA (Junior Golf Association of Arizona), he refused to immediately address the issue. He indicated that “there are other priorities over this assault complaint at this time and (we) will deal with the situation when we have the time.”

On June 27th, the victim’s father received a phone call from Sean Ferris, assistant executive director of JGAA. Mr Ferris informed him that the JGAA found no evidence of foul play. Sean Ferris also spoke to the victim and then accused her of lying about the assault incident, and caused the defenseless 12 year old to burst into tears.

In her words, “My dad wanted me to talk to Sean Ferris about the incident, so I did. I told him everything but he accused me that I was lying. He told me the incident wasn’t severe and that he couldn’t find witnesses to tell him anything.”

Sean Ferris decided to conclude his investigation by raising his voice “YOU ARE LYING!” to an already crying 12 year old girl and hanged up. As a young golfer who values integrity in the game of golf, the victim wanted nothing more but a fair and unbiased investigation of the incident, and was upset why tournament officials were not providing her that.

Sean Ferris’ words were demeaning and repulsive towards an innocent 12 year old girl. His conclusions were biased because he sided with the assailant’s fabricated statements, without even interviewing the other players who were actual witnesses of the assault at the 16th tee box.

Prior to concluding his investigation, Sean Ferris neither spoke to nor interviewed the other playing partners or the victim on the 16th tee box. He did however, speak to and even met up with the assailant and her father. The Phoenix Police detective interviewed each of the playing partners and confirmed the assault with the golf club. The parents of the playing partners also confirmed that their children got phone interviews with the police detective, but not Sean Ferris.

As Mr. Ferris jests to the victim’s father on June 27th, “I’m not a real investigator, but a tournament organizer.”

This statement showed that Mr. Ferris never had any intentions to thoroughly investigate the incident by obstructing justice in his own investigation.

The victim’s family took matters in their own hands from the beginning and pushed the case all the way to a juvenile prosecutor’s office, in order to send a strong message to JGAA and the assailant’s family that a cover-up of this kind will not be tolerated.

Without confirming with other witnesses about the assailant’s statements, Mr. Ferris made a complete mockery of his own investigation and turned it into a cover-up for the assailant’s family and downplayed the incident in order to protect JGAA’s public relations.

In this regard, it could also be said that both the assailant’s family and the JGAA officials are contributing to the delinquency of a minor.

Furthermore, JGAA’s Sean Ferris and Tom Cunningham will not admit to their botch investigation, and never expressed apologies or sympathies to the victim and her family after the incident. The assailant continued to play golf after that tournament and did not receive any type of sanction from JGAA.

In the words of the victim’s father: “Sticking to the golf tenets of honesty and integrity should also rule their investigation. We did not want the Phoenix police to be involved, but we had to take matters into our own hands because we felt they did not do a proper investigation and belittled the case.”

What kind of message is JGAA sending to the rest of the junior golf community who all know about this infamous incident? Both players and their parents are outraged that the spoiled brat assailant got away scot-free with just merely a pass “off the hook”, and “a slap on the wrist” by the JGAA officials. These officials were supposed to represent a game that stands for 100% honesty and complete integrity.

This incident is an atrocity to the game of golf, much more to junior golfers who are being molded to carry on the values and ethics that they learn on the golf course as virtues to be applied in the game of life.

The victim and her family are completely dismayed by JGAA’s lack of action and credibility to take responsibility as golf officials. This is an incident worth exposing so that other dedicated young golfers will be spared from unfortunate episodes such as this.

Stay tuned for more updates.

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