Goosen says just the opposite. "I was just lucky to survive. Maybe it's done me some good. I am playing pretty good golf--it got me going a little bit, added energy."

Which Goosen knows nest? "After a person is hit by lightning, the brain is like a computer that's had a high-voltage shock," says Mary Ann Cooper, M.D., a lightning-injury researcher at the University of Illinois. "It looks fine inside; the cables aren't melted and the board isn't fried. It's the same with the brain. When you do a CAT scan or an MRI it looks okay. But when you boot up the computer, the files don't come up or they don't interact correctly."

Depending on the severity of the injury, lightning-strike survivors often have to relearn--and think about--daily skills, from tying shoelaces to walking. They can also find it difficult to focus on more than one thing at a time. That's been the case for Michael Utley, a former stockbroker who became a lightning-safety advocate after being struck during a 2000 charity golf tournament. "Victims shun crowds or people because too much input is overwhelming," Utley says. "For Retief, if he's with a bunch of reporters asking questions, and he can'tmulti taskk, that's going to affect how he interacts."

But could it have helped him in the pressure cooker of the U.S. Open, where absolute focus is a coveted skill?

"He could have turned the negative into a positive and improved his focus," Utley says. "The blind man learns to smell very well. The mind is a powerful thing."