Golfer dies after cart plunges off cliff

[ashling]

FALLBROOK, Calif. — A golfer died Tuesday after his golf cart plunged 75 feet off a cliff and crashed onto a road below, authorities said.

Edwin Payne, 65, teed off with three friends on the second hole of the Pala Mesa Resort Golf Course about 50 miles north of San Diego at around 10 a.m. and then got into his cart.

The vehicle veered off the concrete pathway, traveled down a 25-foot embankment and went over the edge of the cliff, California Highway Patrol spokesman Tom Kerns said.

Payne, a recently retired real estate agent from Irvine, was ejected shortly before the cart hit the road beneath the cliff and died on impact, Kerns said.

No one else was involved in the crash.

Investigators will inspect the golf cart for mechanical failures, Kerns said. Drugs or alcohol were not thought to have been factors in the crash

The article didn't say why he was so teed off with his friends ... somebody tampered with the brakes ... and the ejection seat