Last week I planned to play a nice little after-work round with a new colleague. Luckily he’s keen on playing golf as well so we managed to get to a course I haven’t played before not far from our office, paid EUR 40 for a sundowner at 5.30pm and off we went.

The weather was good, not too warm and not too cold, t-shirt and long trousers. We enjoyed being out there, playing golf having left the office a bit earlier than normal. But after some nice holes at Golf Club Main-Taunus in Wiesbaden-Delkenheim we realised that we probably wouldn’t make it to the 18th as we saw some dark clouds gathering.

5 minutes later it got darker and darker, another 5 minutes later the wind was picking up just before we heard thunder in the distance. We just finished the 12th and were at the most outbound point of the course, when we decided that it would be safer to end the round immediately and quickly head back to the club house. A wise decision as we saw lightning flashing over the course again and again. Seconds after we returned to the club, heavy rain arrived and wouldn’t stop for hours!

Getting wet is one thing, but suffer from a lightning stroke is another. Always remember you are walking in nature, most probably surrounded by huge trees, you have some clubs with metal shafts in you hand which quite frankly would do the rest… I remember an incident not long ago and not far from here in which 3 golfers died on a golf course because they took the wrong decisions.

Always play save! You only got one life after all!