Girl Hit by Father's Golf Ball Dies

A 6-year-old Utah girl who loved to go golfing with her father is dead after an incredibly tragic accident at Sleepy Ridge Golf Course in Orem. Police Lt. Trent Colledge tells the Gephardt Daily that the father teed off Monday morning as daughter Aria Hill sat in a golf cart around 15 yards away and "mis-hit" the ball, which hit the girl on the back of the neck. She was taken to a local hospital in critical condition before she was flown to Primary Children's Hospital in Salt Lake City, where she died Monday night. "It’s an extremely tragic accident," Colledge says. "I can’t imagine what that father is going through."

Colledge says the cart was neither directly in front of nor directly behind the father as he teed off, but between 45 and 90 degrees to his left. Uncle David Smith says the girl was her father's "golfing buddy." "That was one of their things that they would do together," he tells the Deseret News. "It was something that was really important to them and something they did all the time." Steven Marett, head golf professional at Sleepy Ridge, says people have been hit with balls at the course before, but he's never heard of anybody else being killed or seriously injured. "This is absolutely unimaginable, and it’s been devastating to see it at the course," he says. (More Utah stories.)