Let’;s start by defining lightning. It is a sudden electrical discharge moving from a positive charge to a negative charge. This usually means that lighting strikes, not from the sky downward, but from the positively charged Earth upward to a negatively charged cloud. The speed of travel is so fast—often 1,000 miles per second—that it breaks the sound barrier and creates a sonic boom, which we call thunder. The temperature surrounding the lightning strike (often called a “bolt”) can reach 50,000°F.

Like any flowing force, lightning seeks the path of least resistance—a hill, a tree, a metal broadcast tower, a skyscraper, a home lightning rod, a goal post, a golfer standing on a putting green raising his nine iron—and the closer to the clouds, the better. Therefore, lighting will theoretically keep striking in the same place until that place is either moved, lowered, destroyed, or heads to the clubhouse.