Golfers Bee Ware

Mother Nature has found a number of ways to cancel or cut short sporting events over the years.

Baseball games are routinely rained out. The college football season opener between Michigan and Western Michigan was called early due to lightning. Even a game at the indoor Metrodome had to be moved to Detroit from Minneapolis last year when the roof collapsed because of too much snow. An earthquake delayed the 1989 World Series, and we all know what Katrina did to the Saints, Hornets, Tulane and anyone else who played games in Louisiana in 2005.

But Tuesday’s turn of events at a college golf tournament hosted by Texas-Arlington is a new one by us.

The Waterchase Invitational was cut short when a tree limb holding a beehive collapsed to the ground near the 18th green, releasing approximately 70,000 angry bees, many of whom were more than willing to sting players.

With the high number of bees too much for a beekeeper to round up in timely fashion, the final round was cancelled. That gave the victory to Wichita State, which was atop the leaderboard after the second round.

Wichita State’s colors, of course, are black and yellow.