Golfer Sinkhole: Man Free-Falls Down 18 Foot Sinkhole and Survives [VIDEO]

A golfer was suddenly swallowed into the ground by an 18-foot sinkhole in Illinois while playing golf, but luckily survived with only a dislocated shoulder.

"I was standing in the middle of the fairway. Then, all of a sudden, before I knew it, I was underground," said Mark Mihal, the 43-year-old mortgage broker who fell down the sinkhole. The sinkhole measured 10 feet wide and was near the 14th hole at the Annbriar Golf Course in Illinois, according to the Associated Press.

Mihal said he noticed a bathtub-looking indentation about knee deep just behind him on the fairway. ''It didn't look unstable,'' he said. ''And then I was gone. I was just freefalling. It felt like forever, but it was just a second or two, and I didn't know what I was going to hit. And all I saw was darkness.''

His golfing companions didn't actually see him vanish into the sinkhole but noticed he was suddenly missing, thinking he may have tripped down a hill. But then one of them heard Mihal's moans and went to investigate.

''He just thought it was some crazy magic trick or something,'' Mihal said.

Luckily, his friends were able to quickly hoist him out of the sinkhole using rope and ladder. The ordeal lasted 20 minutes. The event is chillingly similar to the much-publicized recent death of a man in Florida who died when his bedroom fell into a sinkhole. His body has yet to be found.