Pacific Grove Muni Vandalized (Herald.com)

[Nick Church]

VANDALS DIG BIG HOLES IN GOLF COURSE
$8,000 in damage more severe than last time
By DANIA AKKAD
Herald Staff Writer
Article Last Updated: 06/20/2007 01:26:31 AM PDT

As the sun rose over the Pacific Grove Municipal Golf Course Tuesday, groundskeepers discovered that vandals had struck again.

But this time, instead of leaving behind the tire tracks typical of moonlight joyrides on the greens, these hooligans dug up the 14th green, causing at least $8,000 in damage.

Golf course Superintendent Mike Leach called it the worst vandalism he's seen.

"Someone has physically just beaten the heck out of a $30,000 green," he said. "It was as if someone took a roto-tiller to (it)."

Pacific Grove's golf course and several others, including the Monterey Peninsula Country Club, were also the target of pranksters six weeks ago, but those capers weren't nearly as damaging as Monday night's big dig, Leach said.

"We attributed (those incidences) to the end of the school year-type thing," he said.

Pacific Grove police Cmdr. Tom Uretzky said the case is unusual because there isn't a whole lot of evidence.

"It's generally a cart or a truck doing donuts. This is pretty weird because it's obviously not a vehicle," Uretzky said. "It's just a bunch of holes."

He said the incident, considered a felony because the damage totals more than $400, is not part of a greater wave of vandalism across the city.

Golf course destruction seems to happen at random, said Manny Sousa, superintendent at Poppy Hills Golf Course in Pebble Beach. He said his course hasn't been struck recently.

"They just tend to hit one course for a while and then
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move on," Sousa said Tuesday. "Hopefully, somebody will catch them before they mess with the next one."

Sometimes the vandalism can be fairly well-planned out, he said. When he was working at a golf course in Northern California, Sousa said, someone cut up small triangles throughout the green like a crossword puzzle.

Another time at the same course, he said, pranksters wrote messages in the grass with gasoline.

"(They weren't) exactly the messages you want to take home to grandma," he said.

In the end, Sousa said he's not sure exactly why vandals destroy golf courses.

"They don't realize that it's not the golfer that has to go out there and fix it. It's the crew. It falls on us and we have to put it back together," he said.

Leach said his staff will be fixing the torn-up course until at least Thursday. Until then, golfers will use a temporary green that has been set up.

Uretzky said an investigation is under way.

[Kalen Braley]

There was a green years ago that a big truck had tore up at San Roman Royal Vista golf course as it was known back then.  

Luckily for me that was the first and only time I've seen something like that, it was very upseting.  Can't imagine that scenario at PG...

Any one else seen or heard of worse than this?

[Adam Clayman]

PG is particularly susceptible to this behavior. It's proximity to public roads and a not so healthy attitude towards the GM make them a prime target.

With the the price of high tech surveillance equiptment becoming reasonable....If you can spend 10+ mil on a new clubhouse, the few thousand to protect the asset that brought'em, seems prudent. Of course that's only if it isn't an inside job. The tell will be when they have a new $90,000 USGA spec green in the not too distant future.

For those that can't recall the 14th. It's the green that has the two circular storage sheds (reads eyesores) behind the greens. The approach shot is played between a V that is well short of the green. Recent ESA's were added to the left and long of this green. Those two ciruclar buildings were batteries that protected the south end of the Monterey Bay from the Japanese navy.

[Eric Morrison]

Unfortunately, this senseless vandalism occurs often on golf courses. Stolen flags, tee markers, and smashed benches and tee signs are the common ones...at least these don't incur major losses. Bought granite tee signs last year  . More disturbing ones that have happened to me in my career are ripping up greens with flagsticks or bunker rakes, etc. (at least 5 times) that require resodding of areas, spray painting our cart building and backhoe, and opening up and destroying an irrigation satellite ($4K). We have the police do surveillance at night, but you can't be everywhere all the time.

[Dan Herrmann]

Our course has been vandalized several times by yahoos driving all over the course, including the greens.

Great story - 2am, and we'd just had about .75" of rain.  Guy is up on the first green doing donuts and climing up and down the hill to the 2nd fairway in his 4x4.  He's drunk.  

Member living near the course calls the state troopers (our local law agency).  Yahoo is gone by the time they get there.

Having a great time, he's left to go get his buddy.  Returns to the scene of the crime and starts doing his thing again.

Member calls the cops again, and they nab him.

Where?  In a bunker!  They drove into one of Gil's big bunkers below the 1st fairway and couldn't get out!

Caused a lot of damage that took about a year to completely heal.

We couldn't recover any $$$ because they were uninsured and unemployed.  I think they got probation becuase of drunk driving and something like 'interfering with agriculture' because they drove through a field of corn to get to the course.

[Adam Clayman]

Another fine examle where the ASGCA needs, and needed, to be more proactive with legislators, form a PAC, Do something to protect your far reaching interests.