In 20 years of working on golf courses, I've never seen anything like what we experienced on Saturday afternoon when a bolt of lightning struck the 9th fairway. It struck without any sign of lightning in the area but was following a storm which passed through north of the golf course. As there were a number of golfers who were nearby when it hit, we were extremely lucky that no one was injured. I've seen it hit trees, flagsticks on greens and satellite boxes directly, but never on an open fairway.
Damage wise, apart from the fairway, was an irrigation control board in the office and one at the nearest satellite, 6 solenoids at nearby sprinklers (which act like magnets turning the sprinkler on and off), a little bit of wire, and 1m of pipe which simply disappeared. When we dug up the blast point to repair, the pipe was gone showing the incredible power that a lightning bolt can provide.
I hope that all players following this incident will be very cautious after periods of storm activity and not race out onto the golf course thinking that everything is fine.
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