Has anyone else experienced - People who Live on Courses Acting Like Golf Course Isn't There?

[ditchparrot19]

I find the claim "kids making sandcastles with mom" in a fairway bunker difficult to believe.

I don't – not in the slightest. I have a 5-year-old daughter and I'm around other parents in a lot of different situations. The scene described by the OP doesn't even budge my own needle of disbelief.

[Shindig]

I find the claim "kids making sandcastles with mom" in a fairway bunker difficult to believe.

There's even a USGA rules decision about it. No, you can't smooth out the castle if doing so would improve the lie of your ball in the bunker. Yes, you can smooth them out if your ball isn't in that bunker, or if you're doing so in order to care for the course (but doing so won't affect your ball). Rule 13-4, exceptions 2 & 3.

[Chris Stewart]

Just the other day my friend nailed a house on his drive. It hit so hard I wasn't sure it hit a house. Sure enough, the people that lived there were waiting as we approached the landing zone, all sorts of pissed off. I understand not being happy your house just got drilled, but damn, you live in the landing zone on a fairway. It's going to happen, handle it better.

[BuckeyeNut]

Just the other day my friend nailed a house on his drive. It hit so hard I wasn't sure it hit a house. Sure enough, the people that lived there were waiting as we approached the landing zone, all sorts of pissed off. I understand not being happy your house just got drilled, but damn, you live in the landing zone on a fairway. It's going to happen, handle it better.

I have many of these kinds of stories from over the years............

TWO come immediately to mind:

1.  A long par5 with trees lining OB Left.  There is a steep drop-off, so anything in the trees is out.......Houses are very close behind the trees down the hill.   I proceed to hit a towering draw over the trees (I'm a lefty)  that didn't quite make it back to flat ground.  I knew it was out, so I re-teed and hit my 3rd shot to the right side of the fairway.  I never attempted to search for my first ball because I knew it had to roll down the hill in the woods and was OOB anyway.   I am not that attached to balls to hunt for OOB balls.............As chance would have it, this was late in the day and the course was slow so the marshal was riding alongside me as I walked the course and shared some quality conversation.   As I walked down the fairway,  an angry homeowner walked onto the course waving his arms and holding my ball.  My ball definitely didn't hit a house, but I am thinking he was in the back of his yard and he might have been hit my ball as it clanked down through the trees....the guy was besides himself!!  The marshal kindly intercepted the man at the left edge of the fairway and I can see him waving his arms downward as to say .........."calm down buddy".. LOL   The homeowner threw my ball at/to me and it came to rest at my feet....I smiled and thanked him for my ball and played onward............  that was weird!!

2. A fellow club member (an 18 HC) owns this house and I've played golf with him several times on weekday evenings.  At this time, I was a 1-2HC.  I've heard rumors that he was one of those "ANGRY" property owners that yells at golfers.   I was playing early Saturday morning when I clank a ball off his deck.  Sure enough...he walks out and into his backyard!  At this point,  I knew trouble was brewing..LOL  From afar,  he has no idea it's somebody he knows that hit the ball.   I approached and said something to the effect ............"sorry Mike, I clanked one off your deck...have you seen my ball?" He had it in his hand, and tossed it to me with a smile and a pleasant greeting.  I knew the wrath of Mike was waiting if I was a stranger.  LOL

I mean c'mon....as if I hit the ball OOB on purpose?  It was still awkward because I'm sure he understood that I knew why he was standing in his yard with my ball in his hand....I knew he wanted to chew me out, but to his surprise....the culprit was somebody he knows personally.  LOL

[vangator]

"The sand castles made an impression on me too. I wonder if I hit into the keep, would that be considered a jailed ball? More importantly, which club do I need to use?" We have a "footprint" rule in our golf league about unraked bunkers where you can place the ball if you land in a bunker. I think it should be expanded for sand castles too. :)

[Jeremie Boop]

There's even a USGA rules decision about it. No, you can't smooth out the castle if doing so would improve the lie of your ball in the bunker. Yes, you can smooth them out if your ball isn't in that bunker, or if you're doing so in order to care for the course (but doing so won't affect your ball). Rule 13-4, exceptions 2 & 3.

Interesting that a ball that may not have stayed in the trap would be stuck in some kid's sand castle leaving you with an impossible shot and that's ok by the rules. I suppose it's so rare that it's probably not something that will happen to many people, just would suck to be the one person who did get screwed by it.

I've no problem with people using the paths on a course to walk/run etc. I even met a lady who was out with her 2 kids and dog out at just before dark searching for golf balls. She seemed pretty skiddish because as soon as I pulled up she started apologizing and asking if they were in trouble and they didn't know better because they just moved there. I let her know it was ok, nobody else was on the course and people look for lost golf balls all the time. They were all very friendly. The dog was quite large but very friendly, he had a bad limp from getting hit by a car. I've also had a guy blow up at me when I was a lot younger because I tried to hit a Phil flop shot and bladed it straight over the green hitting his garage. I guess he thought I did it on purpose. I've seen some pretty funny stuff and been the cause of some pretty interesting encounters through the years, but typically the interactions are not bad. I will have to take a picture of the first tee on my league course.... There are some brave home owners or bad planning on property layouts is all I have to say.

[RayG]

this business of a golf course as "private" property is an American idea. St. Andrews is built on "Common Land" owned by the town. People can access the course and walk along the paths since it is public property. HOWEVER- this is St. Andrews and they know where their Scones are buttered. They respect the golfers and generally stay out of the way. Families, people walking their dogs, etc... all can be seen on the course. This is the case at many courses over there- England, Ireland, Scotland or whatever.

[jetsknicks1]

Might be just some of the quirks of suburban golf. I can't say because at least 98 percent of the rounds I play are on rural courses. I know if I lived there and knew there were fish in that pond, I'd be making casts to them. I'd just have to take my chances with errant golf shots.

My son loves bass fishing and keeps a rod in his bag, just in case things are really slow :-)

[Lihu]

My son loves bass fishing and keeps a rod in his bag, just in case things are really slow

Does that count as a training aid?

[jetsknicks1]

Does that count as a training aid?

I've never seen it help his game or help him catch a fish for that matter. :-D

[Dave2512]

I've never seen anything like this. About the worst of it is just people being loud in their yards. I have seen people fishing in lakes that back to homes at a private course I play but never on the course side, there would be no way to hit them. Every course we play that has homes around it has signs saying private golfers only anywhere there is access to the grounds.

[RandyBobbitt]

I used to see that all the time at my home course when I lived in North Carolina. Neighbors treated the cartpaths as their personal walking/jogging trails, usually late afternoon when there were still people playing. What made it especially dangerous was the number of blind tee shots where you could easily hit someone before you saw them coming over the top of the hill. Luckily, for private or semi-private clubs the management could always use the threat of trespassing charges. For a municipal course, that might prove harder. I knew of another private club that closed for a six-month renovation and allowed neighbors to use the cartpaths as walking trails. Unfortunately, when the course re-opened, the walkers and joggers didn't get the word, and it took a while to break them of the habit.

[barbm12thtee]

I gasped when I saw some neighborhood kids hitting balls off the green with some old oversized irons. They ran when they saw me but I knew them, as they were former students from the school I used to teach. I went over to their backyard and calmly told them that the green was only for putters not irons. I directed them to a nearby field where they could play without destroying the course. They were happy to learn about the course and probably relieved I wasn't scolding them. Some people just have no clue. And yes we've had people fishing, jogging, skate boarding, and even [cringe] riding ATV's and mo-peds on the cartpaths and fairways.

[GangGreen]

The funny thing is, when I was 10 or 11, I actually WAS one of those kids. There's a course not too far from my parents house and we used to fish in one of the ponds over the summer. Honestly, it wasn't until I was older that I even realized that we were fishing smack dab in the middle of a golf course since we rarely saw people out (it was, and still is, a real goat track). I used to play the course over summer breaks from college when I took the game up and remember coming to the hole where that pond was in play and thinking to myself WE COULD'VE GOTTEN KILLED OUT THERE...the pond was literally just off the fairway with a blind shot off the tee. Darn stupid kids...hahaha!!!

[trickyputt]

I gasped when I saw some neighborhood kids hitting balls off the green with some old oversized irons. They ran when they saw me but I knew them, as they were former students from the school I used to teach. I went over to their backyard and calmly told them that the green was only for putters not irons. I directed them to a nearby field where they could play without destroying the course. They were happy to learn about the course and probably relieved I wasn't scolding them. Some people just have no clue. And yes we've had people fishing, jogging, skate boarding, and even [cringe] riding ATV's and mo-peds on the cartpaths and fairways.

You teaching them about the game was the most awesome thing I heard today.

[MS256]

My cousin and I were playing at the country club where he is a member and we came over a hill to one of the par 3s. There were probably 20 teenagers in the fairway playing a football game. When they saw us they all ran over to the sides until we hit out shots and then they resumed their football game.

Funny thing was that with that audience both of us hit the green.

I told my cousin afterward that those kids now probably think we are golfers.

[NJpatbee]

I live in "rude" NJ in a community that has a decent executive course in it s center.  I have seen people running their dogs in the just before dark when the course is empty, once every several years a couple of greens seem to get vandalized, but nothing major.  But I have never seen the type of behavior described above.

As far a some people being oblivious to the course and its players, I played a course in South Jersey in the Atlantic city area that had homes and townhouses bordering a couple of sections of the course.  There was an attractive woman who was in her townhouse patio lying on her back stark naked about 30' from the rough for every golfer to see that rode their cart her side of the fairway.  So sometimes it does work out.