JV - many thanks for the explanation! Oh yes, that's exactly how it was explained to me during the course rating, and some of those guys are rules officials also so it was a very interesting conversation. They each emphatically stuck by exactly what you said for competition - which is the correct rule, after all - but heck, tournament players aren't the issue here... they can take the proper relief and be back far enough to easily miss the lights, for the most part.
The issue was what to tell the course when they asked if they can change this to a local rule, to put on the scorecard... too many lights were being broken by people either taking the proper relief, but lacking the proper skill to then miss the lights, or, not taking any relief at all and just firing balls into the lights willy-nilly (yes, apparently this was happening a lot, as odd as it sounds for health reasons....).
When our NCGA folks told them they couldn't change the rules for this situation, the issue went to the USGA... and they said the same thing.... so the club did just go ahead as you say, and wrote a local rule on the card that is contrary to the rules of golf - they made it line of sight going as far back as one wants to be able to safely clear the lights.
Anyway, this whole thing makes sense, but seems to me to be a strange situation. To me, logically, if lights are being smashed and injury is being risked, than a little bending of the rules is warranted. I guess the bottom line is that bending of the rules can't happen no matter what... but darn this is a tough one.
TH
ps - the marking of canyons/brush/etc. as lateral hazards is one hell of an interesting issue also... helps for speed of play, but is absolutely contrary to the rules and in the end causes one to have an artifically low handicap if one plays by these... I guess this is supposed to be corrected by us doing the course rating ignoring these illegal markings, which we do, but I'm not sure if this all balances out.
pss - sorry to one and all for going off on the rules tangent!