Thomas Bjorn Breaks $80,000 ESPN Camera At British Open
Thomas Bjorn managed to smash an ESPN camera worth around $80,000 during the first round of the 2013 British Open.
The Danish golfer was trying to recover after smashing his first shot into the rough, and as he hacked his way back into contention he managed to hit the ball right into an ESPN TV camera, breaking the camera’s lens in the process.
Even worse for the golfer though, the ricochet back off the camera left the sportsman in an even worse position. You can see footage of the incident above.
One of the commentators on the footage remarks after watching the shot soar into the air, “Our camera [was] down the fairway, but obviously when you got the ball into that high, whisky stuff you have no idea where it is going to come out.”
He then joked, “And that is an $80,000 bill heading to Denmark, with the name Thomas Bjorn on it.” The duo of analysts then become flummoxed after it is announced that the camera cost $80,000, and they then continue their banter, with another stating that it looks like a cellphone he dropped several weeks ago.
Going into the event, Bjorn had been in scintillating form, with the 42-year-old having finished in second place in a number of events on the European Tour this year, and despite this blip he is still just in the running, having managed to score a respectable one over par on the front nine.
However, Bjorn wasn’t the only golfer to suffer because of the course, with Ian Poulter and Phil Mickelson criticising Open organizers for making Muirfield “unplayable.”
Mickelson stated, “”I got very lucky to play early today because as the day wore on and we got to the back nine, about a third of every green started to die and became brown,”after he scored a two under par round on the opening day of the UK Open.
