Tempers flared at The Links at Whitehaven in Memphis, Tennessee, earlier this month when a player mistakenly hit a golf ball near the hole 22-year-old Wesley Caldwell of Nesbit, Mississippi, was playing.
Caldwell, according to a witness playing with the victim, threw the ball toward the two players before hitting the victim in the head with his club, knocking him to the ground.
On Monday, Caldwell was charged with aggravated assault and booked in Shelby County Jail, according to WREG Memphis.
The victim, Mark Coleman, was taken to the hospital before being flown to Regional One Medical Center due to a fractured skull. Coleman, a member of the Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, was put on a ventilator.
Caldwell was released on a $5,000 bond.
NAACP officials in the region are backing a call for an attempted murder charge after the incident, which the president of the local NAACP chapter said was largely unprovoked.
“Mark was not there exchanging blow for blow with this guy. He was trying to defuse the situation and walked away and he was attacked like he was and now he’s fighting for his life,” Vann Turner, president of the Memphis chapter of the NAACP, told Fox 13 News.
