The close friend and former college room-mate and golf team-mate of Bermuda Opposition leader Kim Swan is in hospital after a horrific car crash.

Ken Green, who has been playing on the Champions Tour and enjoyed success on the US PGA Tour, was seriously injured on Monday afternoon in an accident on Interstate 20 near Meridianin in Mississippi that killed his brother, Billy, his girlfriend Jeannie Hodgin, and his German Shepherd dog.

Green is believed to have been driving his RV when the vehicle suffered a tyre blowout, veered off the road and crashed into a large oak tree.

Green went to college with Swan and both embarked on their professional golf careers around the same time.

"This is tragic, just devastating," said Swan when contacted yesterday.

"Losing his brother Billy and girlfriend Jeannie, people he loved. I am deeply saddened as they both – Jeannie and Billy – were very kind to me.

"Kenny loved animals too, none more than Nip, his German Shepherd. There is one famous story where Nip was pulled into a lake by an alligator and Kenny jumped in after them, wrestling the alligator until it freed Nip.

"Kenny's been to Bermuda many times. Our entire family are all praying for Kenny. We love Kenny, he is family. My prayers are with him and his family."

Swan noted that he and Green had enjoyed a long relationship, starting in 1976 when they were team-mates and room-mates at Palm Beach Junior College.

"In college we were like brothers," added the UBP leader. "I spent summers at his home in Connecticut and we played the amateur golf circuit together. His family took me in and became my family in the United States – great people.

"We saw a fair amount of each other when I was preparing for the senior tour. From 2005-07, we played mini-tour events in South Carolina, Georgia and Florida. I used to stay in that same RV."

Green won five times on the PGA Tour, his last victory coming in 1989 at the Kmart Greater Greensboro Open. At Swan's invitation, he played in the Bermuda Open at Port Royal on a number of occasions.

After turning 50 last year, he joined the Champions Tour and on Sunday tied for 37th at the Triton Financial Classic in Austin, Texas.

"All of us at the PGA Tour are saddened by the news of this tragic accident," PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem said when informed of the accident. "Our thoughts and prayers are with Ken Green and his family in this very difficult time."

The Tour website quoted Mississippi Highway Patrolman Malachi Sanders as saying the vehicle had suffered a blown tyre and then crashed into a tree.

"According to witnesses, the driver lost control and the RV collided into a tree," Sanders told a local newspaper.

The magazine Golf Digest reported that Green suffered a broken left eye orbital, and that his right leg was hurt so badly that doctors were trying to save it from amputation.