Lightning in golf course

Lightning in golf course

From Kompas

In response to news about lightning striking the Soewarno golf
course near Soekarno-Hatta airport, I would like to inform
readers that it was not true that the golf course management had
warned visiting golfers not to play golf.

While the rain began subsiding at 12:40 p.m local time, the
golf starter called through a speaker phone the Korean group to
go to hole 10. My group had been ready at hole 1, near the
starter, so we were not called through the speaker phone.

When the lightning struck, my group was at the hole-one
putting green, and the group in front of us were walking to the
fairway of hole 2. We did not know whether the group on hole
three, which included the late Robinson, the victim of the
lightning, had been warned not to play. But there was no such
warning from the starter to my group and the group in front of
us. There were three groups behind us waiting for their turn to
tee off.

Closing the course in such dangerous circumstances is the
obligation of the management. Golfers can be warned of the
closing of the course, for instance, by a siren.

As a golfer, I know the risk of being struck by lightning. The
golf course management should show its sympathetic attitude by
accepting the natural disaster as a common risk beyond a human's
ability to predict and control.

GUY SETIADI

Surabaya