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