Police responding to calls found the man, described as in his 50s, running while on fire near the tees of the 17th hole. An officer extinguished the flames but the man was pronounced dead at the scene. A fence near a stone restroom on the course was also burned.
Police are investigating the death of a man they found engulfed in flames on Sunday morning, November 3, at the Pacific Grove (Calif.) Golf Links, the Monterey (Calif.) Herald reported.
Employees in the golf course’s restaurant and pro shop saw the man running while on fire in the area of the stone restroom near Crespi Pond and the tees of the 17th hole on Ocean View Boulevard about 7:20 a.m., the Herald reported.
Numerous calls to Pacific Grove police and the Monterey Fire Department had reported a man and building on fire, the Herald reported. Police arrived first and found the man and a fence outside the bathroom on fire. An officer immediately extinguished the flames, but the man was pronounced dead at the scene.
Vicki Myers, Police Chief of Seaside, Calif., said the man was in his 50s and investigators believe they know his identity from documents found in his car, which was parked nearby, the Herald reported. Myers said his name would not be released until the coroner confirms his identity and notifies his family.
Peter Mitchell, an attendant in the Pacific Links pro shop, said the car was a 2004 or 2005 Mercedes. Two of three tees at the 17th had to be closed while police investigated, but otherwise play proceeded on the course, the Herald reported.
The bathrooms and burned fence were closed with police tape Sunday afternoon, it was noted, with Course Marshall John Rapp ferrying golfers from the 17th hole to the clubhouse restrooms. Rapp said fellow employees reported that the flames they witnessed were so large, they initially thought a car was on fire, the Herald reported.
Chief Myers said the incident was also witnessed by a member of the public who was near the ocean and the Pacific Grove Recreation Trail at the time, the Herald reported, but declined to release other details, citing the ongoing investigation.
The Pacific Grove Golf Links course dates to 1932, with a front nine, designed by H. Chandler Egan, built on land sold to the city by Del Monte Properties Company and its owner, S. F. B. Morse, and the back nine, designed by Jack Neville on seaside land that surrounds the Point Pinos Lighthouse, completed in 1960. The U.S. Coast Guard officially deeded the lighthouse and the back nine to the city of Pacific Grove in 2006.
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