The question on today’s lips is whether anyone has ever been killed by a golf ball on Canwick Park Golf Course and subsequently cremated and buried in St Swithen’s Cemetery.
Being killed on the course but not buried in the cemetery over the road does not form part of this discourse. Neither is death by other means such as heart attack, being run over by a golf cart or, as happened on 5 occasions in the good ole u s of a between 2001 and 2006, being killed on the golf course as a result of a plane crash1!
Heart attacks are the most common cause of death on golf courses which is understandable as golf does tend to be a pastime enjoyed by those of more advanced years. Death by plane should not be totally discounted in Lincoln due to the history of aviation in the county but whilst there are many records of aircraft related fatalities in Lincolnshire I am not aware of any specifically associated with a golf course and certainly not Canwick Park. I may be wrong about this as there is scant information available on the subject.
Before getting back on track here it is also worth clearing up some confusion that may exist in some folks’ minds regarding the subject of “sudden death” and golf. Sudden death is a means of deciding a winner if a game is drawn after the final hole has been played. The golfers involved play on until a hole is won outright, the loser or losers being deemed to have suffered sudden death.
Whilst being hit on the head by a golf ball is also likely to lead to sudden death this is not the same sudden death.
There is very little data in the public domain on death on golf courses in the UK, at least not on the first page of a Google search result and it isn’t really worth looking beyond that. The previously referred to statistic from the USA does come from a source with additional data that could inform our debate.
|
Event
|
Fatalities
|
| Overturned vehicle (nonhighway) |
19
|
| Other nonhighway incident (excluding overturned vehicle) |
14
|
| Fall to a lower level |
8
|
| Highway incident |
7
|
| Homicide |
6
|
| Trench collapse |
6
|
| Struck by falling object |
6
|
| Suicide |
5
|
| Drowning, submersion |
5
|
| Airplane accident |
5
|
Apologies for the spelling and use of un-British vernacular such as “Homicide” and “nonhighway”. Whilst I realise that these terms are probably used and certainly understood in the UK I personally would use “murder” and “non road” as alternatives.
It should be noted that the above statistics which cover the period between 2001 and 2006 pertain to work related deaths and not to golfers themselves. However they do help us to understand the general trends where causes of death on a golf course are concerned. There is no specific reference to being hit by a golf ball but “being struck by a falling object” would cover this scenario and for the purpose of this argument I am going to assume that that is what is meant when describing this particular form of death.
Wikipedia tells us that in 2008, just after the period under examination, there were 17,672 golf courses in the USA and 2,752 in the UK, representing 50% and 8% of the total number of courses worldwide respectively.
If we take these data and extrapolate we come up with a figure of 0.934 deaths by golf ball in the UK over the six years, or around one death every seven years. In any given year therefore in the UK there is a five thousandth of one percent chance that someone at Canwick Park will be killed by a golf ball. Whilst the science behind the calculations used here is not exact I can apply some real world data to the discussion by saying that in forty years of playing golf (I know, I can’t be that old) I have never known anyone to be killed on the golf course, any golf course.
Research by the University of York reveals that “According to the Office of National Statistics, there were 493,242 deaths registered in England and Wales in 2010, compared with 491,348 in 2009 and 537,877 in 2000. In England, in the vast majority of cases, deaths are followed by cremation: in 2010, the current cremation rate was just over 73 per cent. However, in a significant and growing number of cases, cremations are themselves followed by the formal burial of cremated remains at cemeteries, crematoria and churchyards.”
Departing for a moment from scientific facts and methodology the chances are that if someone was killed by a golf ball at Canwick Park they would end up in the crematorium over the road with some degree of likelihood that they would subsequently be buried in the cemetery. We can’t be more exact than this because the ONS doesn’t tell us what percentage of cremations are subsequently buried. The problem is exacerbated further by the fact that there are other cemeterial options in Lincoln. I assume here that cemeterial is a word. If it isn’t either I have invented a new one or, well you knew what I was trying to say really.
In conclusion, and to put everyone’s mind at rest, especially the members of Canwick Park Golf Club it is unlikely that anyone has ever been killed by a golf ball on their golf course and subsequently cremated and buried in St Swithen’s Cemetery.
It’s quite nice to be able to quash rumours of this sort before they begin to take hold thus causing a stampede for the car park of golfers no longer wanting to risk playing at Canwick Park. Such a mad dash for the exit in itself is more likely to cause death than the golf balls now locked safely up in bags in the boot of the car.
Fore!
1 Source United States Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics http://www.bls.gov/opub/cwc/sh20080416ar01p1.htm