CINCINNATI (WXIX) – An Avondale woman is paying the price after a golfer in Paddock Hills takes a bad swing.

Lonnetta Asher was driving by the Paddock Hills golf course a couple of weeks ago when a golf ball went straight through her car’s windshield.

At first, Asher felt fear when it happened. Now, she is left frustrated.

“I heard something go ‘BOOM!’ It scared me,” Asher said. “I looked at my windshield and it was cracked, like circular.”

For a moment, the woman had no idea what hit her.

“I realized that I was in front of the golf course when it happened, and it was a golf ball that hit my car.”

With one mystery solved, she was left with one more: How does she get it fixed? And who is supposed to pay for the repairs?

FOX19 NOW’s Legal Analyst Mark Krumbein says it can be tricky if you only have liability coverage, meaning you are only insured if you cause an accident and the car itself is uninsured.

“Contact your own car insurance company, and if you have a good policy like a comprehensive policy, then if you make a claim for a windshield breakage there should be little to no deductible,” Krumbein advised.

Asher says she tried calling the golf course to try and find the golfer who did it.

However, the golf course said that it was too late to identify that person.

She tried filing a claim with the City of Cincinnati, who owns the course.

“The city of Cincinnati would just say, ‘No, we’re not paying for a golf ball; we didn’t hit the golf ball, it’s not our fault,’” Krumbein said.

He added that the city has limited immunity in many of these kinds of cases.

“That comes from old English law where you couldn’t sue the King of England because he’s the king. There are limits on that, but I’m going to think a golf ball is one of those limits,” he explained.

And that is what the city told Asher. Now, she has to pay for the repairs herself, which she says is frustrating.

“Put a fence up! There’s fences around the one on Reading Road, but there’s no fences on Paddock,” Asher told FOX19 NOW.

The last option would have been if the golfer came forward.

Krumbein says in a case like this where you have a particularly bad shot toward the road, not only would owning up be the right thing to do, but it is also probably not going to come at any cost.

“It’s not car insurance for them as the hitter of the golf ball, it’s actually just a homeowners insurance issue. So they could probably come clean and not have to pay for any of the damage,” Krumbein said.

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