The PGA Tour got lucky with this one.
Lucky no one was killed on the grounds at East Lake Saturday afternoon after the third round of the Tour Championship was suspended around 4:15 p.m.
Within 30 minutes, a huge bolt of lightning struck near the 16th tee, hitting a tree, sending pieces of that tree flying.
Six spectators, including one minor, were injured and taken from East Lake by the Emergency responders.
Put the blame for this squarely on the PGA Tour. The tour has a full-time meteorologist at all its events and even amateurs with a weather app could see that there was a better than 80 percent chance of severe afternoon storms.
Still, the tour sent the final pairing of Brooks Koepka and Justin Thomas out at the unbelievably late hour of 3:30 p.m. Seemed like an invitation for potential disaster and certainly not a move in he best interest of safety.
Even U.S. Open champion Gary Woodland openly questioned the tour’s decision:
“It’s frustrating that they didn’t move tee times up,” Gary Woodland said. “You saw the weather, you saw it was 80 percent (chance of storms) at 4 o’clock. I’m sure with 30 players they thought they could get it in. But obviously now wish they would have moved them up. Now you just hope people are OK.”
As it turns out, none of the injuries to the affected spectators were severe.
The tour dodged a bullet with this one.
With the event moved back in to late August, severe afternoon storms are a regular occurrence.
The tour knew it, everyone knew it, yet they decided to go with the really late tee times.
Perfect example of the tour’s greed, wanting to get the telecast closer to prime time television.
As it turned out, it was the wrong decision.
Period.
