[Jack Black]

Yes, good points. The Nikon F5 film camera has a top shutter speed of 1/8000th of a second, as do a very few other high end film and digitals. But it's hard to use it. You need a lot of light to take pictures at that speed, more light than you would probably get with a slow lens on a cloudy day.

If you did use a fast lens, like a 100/2.0 then you would have a paper-thin depth of field.

We don't know if the shooter was using autofocus or not. Perhaps he had manually focused on Tiger, that would make sense.

I don't think ANY camera could track a golf ball hit by Tiger Woods coming straight at you.

My post was in jest, sort of a insider-camera joke. For the record, I have always thought Nikon made great cameras, and have preferred them to Canons. (But mostly owned neither brand.)

It is a great shot! It's better for being focused on the audience than on the ball. The shooter must just be incredibly happy, even though he might need a new lens.

[fightinJAG]

The ball bounced off his chest, too. That could have left a mark.

[Yaelle]

It is a great shot! It's better for being focused on the audience than on the ball.

Exactly. We know what a golf ball looks like, and we know that's what Tiger just hit (if not a stripper it's a golf ball).

The fact that we can see the expressions on the faces of the audience is important to this shot. It's one in a million, and it's worth any pain it caused. That's a great photo.

[Colonel_Flagg]

It is a great shot! It's better for being focused on the audience than on the ball. The shooter must just be incredibly happy, even though he might need a new lens.

Better shot for it being accidental. He couldn't have known that Eldrick would hit a very poor shot directly at him.

When I'm shooting, I have no problem with saying I'd rather be lucky than good (though being both certainly helps, I'm a ways from that).

I shoot with a D5000 with two fantastic Nikkor VR lenses and a Tamron 90mm macro.