Condoleezza Rice Hits Spectator: Former Secretary of State’s Bad Golf Shot Injures Woman

When former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice played a round of golf at Pebble Beach on Thursday, the unexpected and unfortunate happened -- one of her bad shots smacked into a spectator's forehead.

Rice, only one of two amateurs on the first day of the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-AM, stood on a hill, hitting a hybrid that sent the ball into the left side of the gallery about 50 feet away - nowhere near the green - when she hit the woman, The Associated Press reported.

The woman's nose was gashed and bleeding, and her daughter attempted to soak up the blood with a pairings sheet. Rice knelt, handed the daughter a towel for the bleeding and held the injured woman's hand until first-aid arrived, United Press International reported. Rice apologized to the woman, according to The Associated Press, and asked her assistant to get her phone number for updates on her condition.

The woman walked around in the gallery after the incident, and although she refused to give her name, she told The Associated Press she was treated for a bruise and given pain medication - but no stitches were needed.

Kathryn Imrie, Rice's caddie and the assistant women's golf coach at Stanford, where Rice teaches, mentors and helps recruit student-athletes, told the Associated Press how Rice felt after the incident.

"We didn't talk about it," Imrie said. "Obviously, she was really concerned. And for it not to bother her probably would be tough."

Rice responded to a question about how this incident connects to her current work as a diplomat.

"Somebody asked me, 'How did it compare to diplomacy?'" Rice said to the Associated Press while walking off the 18th green at the course. "And I said, 'Well, I know how to do diplomacy, I'm not so sure about the golf course.'"