Condoleezza Rice hits spectator's head with golf shot

Condoleezza Rice hit a spectator in the head Thursday at Pebble Beach on the first day of the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am. On the sixth hole, which features a blind approach to the uphill green, Rice’s fourth shot launched out of the grass and hit a spectator standing behind the rope.

“Did I hit you?” Rice asked, quickly reaching the woman, whose nose was gashed and bleeding. “It was a bad shot. I’m really sorry.”

The woman's daughter was trying to use a pairings sheet to soak up blood. Rice knelt, handed the woman’s daughter a towel for the bleeding, and held the woman’s hand until first-aid arrived. Before continuing her game, she asked the woman's daughter to call her with an update on her mother’s condition.

Rice is one of only two women among amateurs at the tournament. Last year, Rice and banker Darla Moore became the first women accorded membership at Augusta National, a club of powerful white men and home of the Masters tournament. Rice, the former Secretary of State, is also a member of Alabama's Shoal Creek Country Club, site of golf's major integration battle in 1990, and Monterey's Cypress Point Golf Club, which was kicked out of the AT&T tournament, also in 1990, because it had no black members and refused to comply with PGA Tour inclusion rules.