Crazy or Death Wish
 

Misses Bosox and I are sitting in our lanai looking over a couple holes on the Longleaf executive golf course watching lightning bolts and listening to thunder. Guess what else we're seeing? People playing golf.Is this a death wish? Do these folks like playing Russian roulette also? Come on. I'm just baffled with the sheer ignorance of people some time. It's an executive course.The most these people pay is 3 bucks. Lets's all pray we don't read about these fools in the obits

Can't fix stupid

During the lighting storm, they just need to use a 2-iron for every shot. Cause as every golfer knows...

Not even God can hit a 2-iron. :)

Awe, everyday in the Villages is a risk for everyone here, never know when God’s coming calling ;)

Could be filming a re-make of Caddy Shack.

True, but golfing in a lightening storm increases the odds that God will be calling soon.

Darwin’s Law

It’s just a matter of time.

I was swimming laps in one of the sports pools when I saw a too close for comfort lightning strike and immediately got out of the pool. There were only two of us in the pool, so I went over and told the other gentleman in the pool that it would be a good idea to get out because it wasn't safe. He told me that he was 92 years old and if that is how God wanted to take him then so be it, and he stayed in the pool. I guess that if I am lucky enough to reach the age of 92 I might think the same way? Time will tell.

Thinning of the herd.

Back in the late 1960s I knew well a guy from Rhode Island who told me his father had survived three lightning strikes. The third left his father paralyzed and in a wheelchair until a craps game at which the father was in attendance at the ice house was broken up by the police at which point the father stood up and ran. My friend himself had been struck by lightning in Soho. He showed me the scars on his leg which were quite impressive and told me that he had been unconscious for some time after the strike Perhaps some folks are just more prone. I also knew an old cowhand who was hit by lightning while on horseback near Chama, NM. He was unconscious lying on the ground three days. He was a very tough guy even in his 70s when I knew him. Now these were probably not full hits but peripheral or they each would have been volatilized.

While in college I lifeguarded at a swimming pool which was hit on one end three times. The strikes were all within a six foot radius. I alway got everyone out of the pool when the afternoon thunderstorms arrived during July and August. Some people did not want to get out but I somehow convinced them when I pointed out where the lightning had struck the pool in the past.

Neither, while most will leave a course at first sight or sound of thunder and lightning. It’s still a personal choice, and only those who chose not to leave, can decide if they are crazy or really might have a death wish.

I was playing Bonifay last night when we saw the lightning (it was close), Immediately quit but all those in front of us kept playing.

I can play another day.

Growing up we lived at the convergence of two rivers. The thunderstorms would follow those rivers and stop right over our house. I have seen balls of fire go across the room, had fence posts blown from the ground so close the dirt covered me, was trying to get the cows in and saw one get hit, had a crab apple tree hit while standing under it and have never had so much as a scratch or tingle myself.

I think you get to the point where you become immune to it. I have come so much closer to meeting my maker in airplanes, on highways, on motorcycles, sailing, in Vietnam and in other ways that lighting just doesn't bother me anymore. So I would be one who would just keep playing. Life has been good so if it's time so be it.

Bingo:) It's their life and as long as they aren't hurting anyone else I hope they enjoy every minute of it however they want.

Courses I played in Illinois blew the horn if lightning was a factor and off the course you went. No choice. I wonder if a lawsuit looms because of no policy like that here. I can see a personal injury attorney's field day in court.

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Caddyshack - Bishop golfing - this is the best game of my life - there is no god - YouTube Whatever! Great Memory.

I've always been amazed at the people still on the golf courses when the sky is black and it's thundering (here...you can bet there's also lightening). As someone said---you can't "fix stupid". Years ago, but up north, there was a couple who sought cover under a kiosk on a golf course AND they both got struck and killed, leaving behind a young family. Guess we'd need a fatality or two before "some" might wise up.

My mom is 96 and, unfortunately, in a nursing home. Every time I go there and she tells me something hurts, etc., I tell her don’t worry mom the next time I come I’ll bring a carton of cigarettes and a bottle of Johnny Walker, that will fix everything. She never did smoke or drink but I told her at 96 it might be a good year to start, lol!

My understanding is that is why the Villages does not blow a horn, their policy is personal responsibility and play at your own risk. Once the course management takes on the responsibility of determining when it is safe or not to play, they also expose themselves to liability if someone gets struck by lightning and they did not blow the horn.

:1rotfl::1rotfl::1rotfl:

I don't think people are considering the correct risk. When you're in your 70's, 80's, and up, the "risk of death" isn't quite as significant as the "risk of permanent disability."

Imagine - you don't die. But instead, you are in a hospital bed, hooked up to machines, unable to speak, but very able to feel pain for the rest of your life - no matter how long or short that might be.

That's the risk these folks need to consider, because there is a very real possibility that being hit by lightning will result in lifelong and painful permanent disability.

Graphite shafts. Golf carts with rubber tires. No Problem!:pray:

I thought it was a 1 iron he couldn't hit! Never accuse him of slow play either!

The story in the 60's and 70's was... only God and Jack Nicklaus could hit a 1 iron.

Cars fine with lightning, but golf carts and graphite?
I fly fish, but no way am I going to wave a graphite rod in a lightning storm, and as for a golf cart, no way!
I assume you were joking?

I know it has the same meaning but it's more like culling of the herd.

Okay. Okay. It’s a 1-iron!! :)

But for most of us wannabe golfers, trying to hit a 1-iron or a 2-iron would likely have similar results.

Although maybe God can hit a 2-iron, so I’m glad you made the correction. :)

Lanai
 

Sitting on a lanai during lightning could be just as dangerous,

An enclosed lane. We're not outside in the open air. We have a roof over our head.

Where up north? I used to be a member of Wycoff CC in Holyoke MA. The same thing happened there. Two guys sought "shelter" under a kiosk at the highest point of the course. Of course, lightning struck and both were killed. Not sure how long ago, but seems to me it was about 20 years or so...

a couple of years ago my wife was swimming @ Sea Breeze sports pool-lightning storm sprung up, drove to the pool, threw her bike in the back of my vehicle and got her out of the pool--there were about a dozen people standing in the parking lot around their golf carts- I recommended its not safe to be outdoors when lighting is nearby-one Darwin candidate wrapped his arms around a metal light pole and stated," he's not worried about lightning"

I'm not sure where...they were relatives of friends of ours and we all were living in Central Wisconsin at the time. It would have been the mid-to-late-70's I'd heard this story. SOOO much longer ago than 20 yrs.

I know a young man that was struck by lightening on a golf course.
He wasn't killed, but is permanently disabled and unable to work. :ohdear:

Played Wycoff CC a couple of weeks ago and I saw the lightning shelter (if you can call it that) you referenced in the above post. I wonder who was the rocket scientist who decided to put it at the highest point of the course? Wycoff is one tough course. Hilly, narrow, many blind shots, very deep rough, postage stamp greens, and just about every lie is uneven. I like to cross over Rt. 91 to the other side of the Connecticut River and play the Ledges in South Hadley, much friendlier track.

I want to meet that guy. He is my new role model.

Yeah, that is Wycoff. Short course, tough greens, narrow fairways and not a level lie to be found. I was a member there in the late 80's and early 90's, and then again in 2016. Also a member at Cold Spring Country Club in Belchertown for five years. Now that was a quirky course!
BTW, I remember seeing that gazebo at the top of the course the first time I played there when I was 14. It was an original Donald Ross course.

My neighbor up north is a successful musician with lots of tattoos and many piercings. (He is actually very conservative but it’s an image thing.) He was hit by lightning lightly, walking down the street, just a little burn on the side of his head - has a scar there now and he wears much less metal.

Cold Springs is a nice but quirky course. Kind of off the beating path for me. I hear it is not doing well financially and it's future is in trouble. Also like Chicopee, Westover, Oak Ridge, Southampton, and Tekoya. And if I want to spend the $$, The Ranch or Crumpin Fox. Lots of good options in the area.

Or vice versa. If someone is struck by lightning the question could be why there was not a policy in place. Especially when it is the norm in so many places. BTW, the horn just blew at Medinah, and all the golfers walked off the course.

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