There's many a time when a professional golfer ends up a club short but it's normally golf-speak for not hitting the correct iron, rather than as was the case on the seventh hole at The K Club yesterday, the predicament in which Tiger Woods found himself.

The world number one was on the seventh green when his caddie Steve Williams slipped while holding a towel and his player's nine iron. The New Zealander put out his hand to stop himself from falling and in the process deposited the club and towel into the lake that borders the green.

As a scientific experiment it confirmed that towels float, briefly, and that nine irons sink without a trace. Williams was able to retrieve one but not the other, so his player had only 13 clubs for the remainder of the round. To his credit, Woods laughed and would later demonstrate his ability to cope without the nine iron en route to a three and two victory over Robert Karlsson.

A diver was summoned to reclaim the club from its watery resting place, and Woods was eventually reunited with his club at the 15th hole.