Golf Cart Tragedy

Who ever coined the phrase, "A bad day on the golf course is better than a good day at work" probably wasn't expecting this to happen.

A 65-year-old golfer died Tuesday after his golf cart plunged 75 feet off a cliff and crashed into a road below.

The man teed off with three friends on the second hole of the Pala Mesa Resort Golf Course in northern San Diego County at around 10 a.m. and then got into his cart. The vehicle veered off the concrete pathway, traveled down a 25-foot embankment and went over the edge of a cliff.

The recently retired real estate agent was ejected shortly before the cart hit the road beneath the cliff and died on impact.

What the heck happened? I've been driving golf carts for a long time and I can't imagine anything other than an error by the poor man driving (hitting the gas instead of the brake) or some sort of mechanical problem to cause this accident.

I have seen other accidents before. At my regular course I've seen people acting like idiots behind the wheel and some have resulted in damaged carts and minor injuries but fortunately nothing this serious.

I came close to having an accident once at a tournament. It was early in the morning and the grass was very wet from the dew. While coming down a steep grass hill on a Par 3 I tapped the breaks to control my descent but that was all it took to send the cart into a spin. I did about three revolutions and came to a stop just before hitting another parked cart. I was lucky but certainly couldn't have been blamed had I done any damage.

If nothing else, I gave the folks with me something to talk about for a while.