Watch John Senden snap his driver shaft on the downswing at Australian PGA

Watching or playing golf, you're bound to see some weird things happen. Usually, it might be something like a bad bounce or an animal get in the way. In the case of a club break, it's the head of the club that snaps at impact and goes flying.

But a driver shaft snapping on the start of the downswing? And snapping in the grip? That's a pretty rare one there.

Unfortunately, that was the case for John Senden during the first round of the Australian PGA Championship. While teeing off on the par-5 9th hole, Senden appears to whiff with his driver before tending to his hand. At first it's hard to see what is going on and the sound is the only thing that really lets you know something went wrong. Stay for the slow-motion replay at the end to see an incredible angle of the break in the grip. 

We've watched this over and over and it's painfully mesmerizing.

The most unfortunate part of this story for Senden is that the swing did count as a stroke and he was without a driver the rest of the round. He was allowed to remove his ball from the tee, which was ruled an obstruction, and take a drop on the tee box to hit his second shot with an iron. The Aussie managed to recover well and made bogey on the hole. 

Here he is talking about the situation after the round: