Lightening Return Stroke

Couples able to focus on golf, earns trip to Sawgrass

Couples didn't realize that by winning the Constellation Energy Senior Players Championship Sunday -- his first major victory on the Champions Tour -- he gets a little bonus: A spot in next year's PLAYERS Championship at TPC Sawgrass.

"You might have thrown me for a loop with that one," Couples confessed. "I'll go. Yeah. That'll be very exciting. I did not know the winner got to go. That's great. I get to play with the studs, or try to. So that will be fun."

Couples' victory over John Cook on the third hole of sudden-death playoff at Westchester Country Club put him in an elite group. He joins Jack Nicklaus and Raymond Floyd as the only golfers to win both THE PLAYERS and the Senior Players. And now Couples goes back to Pete Dye 's Stadium Course with a chance to win it for a third time.

On a blustery day that included a rain/lightning delay of nearly two hours, Couples had an opportunity to test his recovering back. Ordinarily, stops and starts aren't what the doctors order for patients with bad backs -- or the guys on the Champions Tour.

"I don't think any of us need a rain delay," said Couples, who went back to the golf course and, admittedly, didn't play his best golf until crunch time.

Then, he showed no signs of a bad back, just a sore hip he blamed on the wind, an air-conditioned locker room and the rush to return to the course for the final 11 holes.

"I'm pretty sure just the way I cooled down," he said. "It was awfully cold in the locker room ... I wouldn't say I was playing awesome golf before the rain delay but it wasn't bad."

The problem wasn't the back on which he had treatment six weeks ago in Germany. It was an aching left hip. But when the battle heated up, Couples warmed to the task and played solidly down the stretch, shrugging off the new hip ailment. He shot 71 for an 11-under-par 273 total. Cook shot 70 to wipe out Couples' 1-stroke 54-hole lead. Australian Peter Senior shot 71 and missed the playoff by a shot.

Difference Between Thunder and Lightning | Difference Between ...

Thunder vs Lightning

The Earth experiences several types of weather. Some can cause only mild discomfort and trouble while others can cause a lot of destruction and loss. The weather can sometimes be hot, dry, clear, and calm while at other times it can be cold, wet, cloudy, and stormy.

Storms are very common. They happen when there is a disturbance in the Earth’s atmosphere. This disturbance can be mild and appear in a small, low pressure area as a small cyclone but can turn into a huge storm with severe weather conditions. It is characterized by strong winds such as in hurricanes and windstorms, heavy rain or snow such as in snowstorms and rainstorms, blizzard, hail, sandstorms, and thunderstorms which are marked by the occurrence of thunder and lightning.

A thunderstorm occurs when there is a raid upward movement of warm, moist air. As it moves upward, it loses heat and cools then compresses and form cumulonimbus clouds where air currents form water droplets and ice particles which collide with each other and build up static energy which causes thunder and lighting.

Lightning is that sudden flash of electricity in the sky which can either be straight or forked. It is very hot, reaching a temperature of up to 54,000 degrees Fahrenheit. It can travel at a speed of up to 140,000 miles per hour.

Lightning strikes tall objects because it always takes the fastest way to the ground. If it is forked, the leader bolt goes down towards the ground then a return stroke snaps back up on the path created by the leader bolt.

When air around the electric bolt expands, it produces sound energy which is called thunder. While thunder and lightning usually occur at the same time, light travels faster than sound so lightning is seen before thunder can be heard.

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