Safety on the course

A new system at Providence Golf Club detects electrostatic energy within a 10- mile radius of the course, says Tom Adams, the club's general manager and golf course superintendent. It was 1986 when Tom Adams saw a golfer get struck by lightning on a course in North Carolina.

"It's the worse thing you will ever see," recalled Adams, general manager and golf course superintendent for Providence Golf Club. "When it comes to golfing, there's always someone who thinks he has time to get in the last half of the golf hole or go to the green and putt out. The person that got struck was on the 18th tee trying to finish the last hole. He was killed instantly."

Fortunately, golfers at Providence are now less likely to suffer that fate. For Adams and his staff, the days of watching the Weather Channel for alerts about storm systems moving through the area are in the past thanks to the Thor-Guard Lightning Detection System. The golf course installed the system in July.

Each year, there are approximately 100,000 thunderstorms in the United States. Lightning is the most dangerous and frequently encountered weather hazard - people are twice as likely to die from lightning as they are from a hurricane, tornado or flood. The Federal Emergency Management Agency estimates there are 200 deaths and 750 severe injuries from lightning each year across the nation.

"Golf courses are almost like magnets, especially if you have an electronic irrigation system that has miles of wires running underneath the ground," noted Adams. "Most courses also have thousands of trees which are perfect conductors for electricity or lightning."

Most lightning strikes occur either at the beginning or at the end of a storm - 70 percent of all lightning injuries and fatalities occur in the afternoon. Adams explains that lightning reaches 50,000 degrees Fahrenheit, four times as hot as the sun's surface, with voltage in a cloud-to-ground strike reaching 100 million to 1 billion volts. The average strike is six miles long. The new system at Providence monitors an area 10 miles around the radius of the golf course and detects the electrostatic energy in the atmosphere that signals lightning strikes.

"The system we are using warns of a potential lightning strike," Adams explained.

Bob Bergin, volunteer senior coordinator for the Chesterfield County Senior Golf Program, plays at Providence every Wednesday morning. He feels safer now that the course installed the warning system.

"It's something that's very positive for the golfers of the course because it's an immediate warning," he said. "Everyone knows when the siren goes off there is no debate. It's time to get in the cart and leave."

The detection system sounds a series of alert notifications - caution, warning and finally red - in order to allow adequate time to seek shelter prior to the arrival of severe weather. Once it is safe to resume activities, the system provides an "all clear" notification.

"The reason we wanted this system is that the U.S. Golf Association uses it at all their major championships," Adams said.

Adams had the opportunity to see the system work when he was attending the U.S. Open in June.

"I was out on the golf course when the alarm went off," he recalled. "We were on the bus within five minutes. They closed the golf course, and within 8-9 minutes the storm hit. The system worked."

Golfers are given a 10-minute notification at Providence.

"That gives them more than enough time to get in even from the farthest point," Adams said. "We will assist folks in getting off the course if they are not using a golf cart."

Some avid golfers, Adams says, don't understand why they can't play the course if a storm is close by.

"Our response to them is that we would rather have you safe than be on the golf course with a storm down the road," Adams said. "I don't want to take that chance."