Australian amateur Harrison Crowe and his entourage have relived the terrifying moment a falling tree sent spectators scurrying for their lives during the second round of the Masters.
Crowe was playing the nearby 16th hole with fellow countryman Min Woo Lee when the towering Georgia pine crashed across the 17th tee box and sent two more cascading at Augusta National on Friday.
Crowe’s parents Tony and Shaunaugh were among the spectators who escaped amid the dramatic scenes as flash lightning caused havoc and the suspension of play.
“They were on the other side so that was lucky,” Crowe told AAP.
“I was on the 16 green (about 30 metres away). We heard it. We watched the whole thing.
“It just started crackling and then it came down. It was scary – it was.”
The frightening incident left Shaunaugh Crowe shaken.
“My heart was up in my throat,” she told AAP.
“First you heard this almighty crack. I looked over and saw this big tree toppling, then you see it falling on to another tree, then another and my first comment was, ‘F**k’.
“Because people were sitting there and I didn’t know where everyone else was – and Tony and the boys were 10 metres away from where it happened.
“So they didn’t actually see it – they heard it.
“Everyone is just screaming, because it’s just like, ‘This hasn’t happened’.
“Everything just stopped.”
Crowe’s coach and caddie John Serhan said it was a miracle no one was killed.
“Tony was 20 metres from it. I s**t myself. You could feel it down there. This little tornado whipped up. It didn’t last long but it caught those trees,” he said.
“You could see them start to sway. They were lucky no one got killed. Very, very lucky.”
Crowe’s father said he watched the tree fall “in slow motion”.
“The worst part about it was all the security guards after the fact said you need to get off the course because more trees are going to fall down,” he said.
Serhan’s son Joseph said the frightening ordeal started when Crowe’s group was approaching the 16th green.
“We got this huge gust up in our faces of sand and dirt,” he said.
“We thought ‘here we go’. As soon as we got out into the open, it was blowing harder and we could literally hear this crack.
“We all put our hands on our head and heard a bunch of people screaming. There was about 50 people sitting down and it was literally falling where people were sitting in their chairs.
“People were falling out of their chairs on the ground and crawling to get away. From where we were, we thought for sure they were going to get hit. You had zero chance.
“There was a lady that froze completely. The trees fell perfectly between her – there was about a metre gap either side of her.”
Crowe’s mother commended Masters officials for their swift response.
“You just saw green coats. Everyone turned up within two seconds,” she said.
“Then the security guard called out and said ‘no one has been hurt’ because, to see that, we were thinking someone has just been killed up there.
“No joke, I looked at Harrison and he was standing on the green and he put his hand on his mouth as if to say, ‘Oh no’.
“I needed to get up to just ask Harrison is he OK.
“By the time I got up to the clubhouse, I was in tears.
“I ended up having my asthma spray because, like seriously, I couldn’t cope.”
© AAP 2023
