Woman Struck By Lightning on Golf Course

The horns had just sounded to warn golfers of lightning when a female golfer was indirectly struck.

"We think what happened was it hit the golf cart, the metal cart," said Ronne Reitz, River Ridge Golf Club general manager. "She was walking, pulling her cart when it hit her. It just knocked her right down."

She tried to follow one of the lightning safety tips listed on her golf bag and come inside, but the storm moved in too quickly.

Reitz thinks the lightning bolt may have hit one of the houses and then a tree. The golfer was somewhere in between.

The golfer was not seriously hurt but she was shaken.

"She just said, 'I think I got hit on my fingers,'" Reitz said. "Her fingers were kind of tingling. She was numb; it was caused when she fell. It knocked her down to the cart path and her hands skinned up a little bit, but she said the rest of her body had no problem, just her hands."

The golfer was just a couple hundred yards from the clubhouse when she was hit. Two other golfers did not have time to make it back so they took cover. They heard the strike.

"It was just a great big crack," Peter Tola said. "I mean it was just everything white, so we saw the flash."

"It is a warning to all of us," Reitz said. "Golf is important, but it is not that important. You have got to get off the golf course."