Westerners Find Golf Course Homes Not All They’re Cracked Up to Be

By Headwaters News, 6-25-07

Living on the golf course is the dream of many a duffer—but high-tech drivers that allow golfers to hit the ball farther—or slice it farther or hook it farther—are creating some domestic disturbances in golf course communities from Arizona to Utah and in other parts of the nation.

The New York Times reports today that 70 percent of new golf courses now being built contain housing, and with more golfers using high-tech drivers that allow them to hit the ball farther and farther, errant shots are increasingly finding their way into course-side homes and bouncing off patios.

While good etiquette requires golfers whose shots go out of bounds pay for the windows and patio doors they break, residents said few golfers actually take responsibility for their wild shots.

One resident who lives along a golf course in St. George, Utah, recounted his experience with a golfer whose drive had broke a window at his house: the golfer, who was playing in a church outing, gave him a phony name and number.

Course designers and golf course owners are widening fairways, planting trees and putting up nets to help block shots gone bad, and new companies that produce extra heavy screens for doors and windows, are also aiding in the effort to protect windows and doors.

Still, some residents said they’d caution friends who are contemplating buying a home on the golf course to just not do it.

That sentiment may ease the discontent of residents of Eagle Mountain, who bought their homes on the promise that three golf courses would be developed in their Utah community.

The Provo Daily Herald reports that Eagle Mountain Properties, the developer that owns 7,000 acres in and around the city’s center, is changing its plans, and the Utah city’s council said there’s nothing that can be done. When the Utah city needed help getting bonds for infrastructure, the developer helped out in exchange for 20-year agreement that allows the developer to change its zoning at any time.

The Eagle Mountain City Council took a member of the School Trust Land Association, who said the city should have come clean about the change—which could mean the loss of 1,000 acres of open space.

Residents who bought their homes with the understanding that they would always have the open space next to them said they felt cheated by the change in plans.

They make take some solace, however, that though their dreams of golf course living have been shattered, their windows may never be broken—by golf balls anyway.