Golf course vandalism and recovering from it

[Michael Moore]

The recent violent threads have got me thinking about a topic that I don't remember seeing here.

Often I daydream about being a golf course owner or head professional or superintendent. And in such reverie I find myself worrying about imagined acts of violence to my imagined golf course, namely vehicles tearing up the greens. A golf course seems so vulnerable to this. I am glad that it almost never happens. There was a widely reported incident with acid on the greens at Southern Hills a while back.

Do any courses take active measures to prevent vandalism? What would the agronomical course of action be if someone went four-wheelin' on a couple of your greens?

[Bob_Huntley]

Michael.

This did happen at a course in the Del Monte Forest. The perpetrators were exposed and somehow and another they received a visit from a resident. It has never had another incident of vandalism.

Bob

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Bob, Was the said 'resident' the individual that lived right next to the 14th hole?

[Mike Sweeney]

Hidden Creek lost 7-8 greens due to vandalism two Springs ago. The greens were fine this summer, but you can still see they are healing and don't have the same roots as the other 10-11.

[Roger Tufts]

Two or Three years ago the Muni next to my town... Olde Salem Greens... had some vandalism on it. A bunch of drunk idiots stole some golf carts at night and ran them all over a good number of fairways and greens after a rainstorm. The damage to the greens was especially devastating. The course opened about 3-4 weeks later than usual that season, but the greens were in decent shape (for the muni greens they were...) and they successfully healed in a year or so.

Tedesco just always seemed to have a problem with high school kids from the nearby school spraying graffiti all over their bathroom building at the farthest point from the clubhouse.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Michael Moore,

In SH's and HC's case it would appear that the cause was related to unusual disputes.

In many, if not most cases, it's cyclical and usually connected to a group of neighborhood kids.  When they discover girls or graduate the acts cease

Some clubs employ local off duty police officers after club hours to protect the course.

In this absurd legal environment, utilizing club staff to protect the golf course can put the club more at risk to litigation.

In one case I know of, the superintendent chased the kids, caught one going over the fence, grabbed his leg, he fell and broke his leg and the parent sued the club.  The club settled.

So, here you have kids committing a crime, being chased and caught, but, the kid who was caught on the club's fence, fell outside of club property, broke his leg, sued and received an award.

Today, when off duty officers are retained, the party retaining them has to sign a release, releasing the town from liability for any acts, and placing the liability squarely on the shoulders of the party retaining the off duty police officers.

Good community relations are a key starting point to eliminating or minimizing vandalism.

[Eric Morrison]

We have had numerous problems with vandalism over the years. Some of it minor, stealing flags and tee markers; some of it major, kids ripping up a green with the flag stick and bunker rakes to the point where we had to close the green for a morning and resod a patch about 4'x6'. Also, once in the winter we had a car do doughnuts on a green. Good thing the turf was frozen, so it didn't rut up, but the grass was damaged and it took a while for it to grow out in the spring. One fall some kids pryed open an irrigation satellite and destroyed it..that cost us $3,500 to replace.
We have the police patrol the course every night and anytime something happens on the course, we call them to make sure they are aware of it and keep up the patrols...it seems to work for the most part.
As far as turf recovery, every course should have a good nursery just in case something happens...in my case I use our practice greens as nurserys, as we have four of them.

[Matt MacIver]

We've had two incidents to our greens in the past three years.  Both times teenagers, once in a golf cart and once in a car.  Cart did minimal tread damage, car major trenching.  Since the minimal damage didn't require re- sodding it took longer to heal, while the re- sodded part was barely noticable after 6 months.  

The aftermath has been interesting.  We've hired marshalls and off- duty cops and discussed putting up fences, barriers, rocks and digging culverts to trap cars.  I've been against rushing to do anything rash -- 2 incidents in 15 year, albeit close together, is a decent track record for a neighborhood course and I don't want to spend $ recklessly.  

[Tom_Doak]

I've seen vandalism on quite a few courses, but nothing as severe as what the elk do at Tumble Creek and at Rock Creek.  Anybody know how to get a herd of elk to straighten up and fly right (sans ammo)?

[Tim Taylor]

One of the great things about my club (Hidden Creek in Reston, VA) is that it's located right in the middle of a large suburban town so it is very close to home and work. This also means it's located right in the middle of a large suburban town with a very mixed socioeconomic population.

We often have kids taking shortcuts across the course, moms walking their babies on our cart paths, dog walkers, etc. I jokingly refer to the club as "Hidden Creek Country Club and Regional Park". The trespassing is an annoyance. Someday someone will get hurt and I hate to think of the legal consequences given the environment Pat Mucci described.

We've had the occasional vandalism, like the malcontents who etched the F word into our 7th green with bleach. There's not much we can do as we're pretty much prohibited from fencing the course off from the surrounding community here in the People's Republic of Reston

Tim

[Ray Richard]

I was growing in a new course once and I caught a few kids on motorcycles tearing up the fairways. I got them served by the local court and they had to come in front of a clerk magistrate with their parents. The charges got watered down and disappeared but the kids got yelled at by their parents and I never had any vandalism after that