What could be better than to be living in close proximity and to have views across a beautifully maintained golf course? For most golfers, that might just be their idea of paradise. Others however are not so keen on the prospect of golf balls landing in their backyards or perhaps bouncing off the roof, often going to the extreme of taking legal action and forcing golf clubs to re-route holes.
But what does our esteemed panel have to say when posed the question
– Should you, would you, live on a golf course?
By Michael Davis
I would love to live on a golf course.
The thought of just being able to step out the gate onto the first tee would fill me with joy. I reckon I’d play golf every day – sometimes twice a day.
That’s why I cannot understand why people lucky enough to live near a golf course appear to constantly bitch about it.
The perennial problem seems to be that wayward golf shots constantly sending balls onto their properties. They are subjected to constant pinging of windows and rooves and errant golf balls apparently narrowly missing kids, pets and their three or four luxury cars.
A lot of golf courses were built as a carrot to sell houses on new estates. Lifetime membership to home buyers was often part of the allure to buy. (Although we hear on the grapevine one popular course has withdrawn playing rights for home owners after 20 years with the matter likely to end in court. Seems a bit churlish to us.)
What I am saying, though, is that golf courses, for the most part, have always been there before the houses.
So, it cannot be any surprise to the owners who have suddenly realised it annoys the heck out of them. Suddenly, they want tee lines moved, and safety fences and nets erected, often at great cost to the club. Again, litigation often follows.
Give me a break!
By Larry Canning
“Would” you live on a golf course? – When my wife and I bought our land across the road from Highlands Golf Course, the same size blocks backing onto the course were nearly 50% more expensive. That’s because having a golf course as you back yard is seen as way better than having one that backs onto someone else’s house.
We would have loved to have had the dosh to do it and if we had, we definitely would have factored in how much our home insurance would increase by adding the old “golf ball damage” clause.
Nothing gives me the “Brad Pitts” more than hearing a resident living next door to a golf course saying – “A golf ball landed on my roof!”. Well, who would have thought?
Whether you play golf or not, you surely must realise none of the golfers playing next door have recently kissed the Auld Claret Jug or donned the Green Jacket. There are literally hundreds of golf balls flying in a hundred different directions on any given day and very few of them are anywhere close to where the owner was intending.
If you are a keen golfer and use the game as an escape from whatever, perhaps living next to your refuge might be just a bit too close? Or if the hole you back onto was the culprit that robbed you of a certain win in last week’s Monthly Medal, you might find yourself googling the Real Estate Market when you get home?
Either way, If we had the chance again, I’m pretty sure we would.
By Peter Owen
I’VE been lucky enough to live on a golf course for the past 12 years. Unfortunately though, for the past decade, it hasn’t been a golf course.
My home backs onto what used to be the 15th fairway of Horton Park, the much-loved Maroochydore course that was purchased by Sunshine Coast Council to be the site for a new regional city centre.
Fortunately – for me, at least – development has been slow and, as I gaze from my home office window, the outlook is much the same as it was 10 years ago, the entire fairway and surrounds lovingly maintained by a neighbour who has a ride-on mower, the costs of its bi-weekly operation financed by the 20-odd residents who, like me, live along its length.
When it was still a golf course, I enjoyed being able to sneak through my gate and play a few holes early in the morning and late on a summer’s evening. I looked forward to strolling down the 11th and 10th fairways to the clubhouse on a Friday evening for a few drinks with my mates.
And I loved the convenience of leaving home 15 minutes before my tee-time, and of sharing a word and a wave from my terrace with fellow members as they passed my home on their way from the 15th green to the 16th tee.
Most of all I appreciated the beauty of the landscape, the sound of birdsong, of gazing at the stunning Poinciana trees that grew to the edge of the fairway, at the lake that separated the 15th and 14th holes, and knowing that it was all being meticulously cared for by a team of dedicated grounds staff, whose wages weren’t paid by me.
Relatively few of us, I know, have the opportunity to have their home on a golf course, and some who do are quick to complain about errant golf balls flying over their fence. But, take it from me, that’s a small price to pay for the pleasure of having the best backyard in the world.
By Michael Court
SURELY this is the dream of every golfer reading this magazine?
Living on a golf course, where you can stroll out the back door at dusk and chip a few balls around after the club pro has gone home?
That’s about as good as life gets . . . isn’t it?
I know of at least one leading golf course in Sydney that was designed and built specifically as a project with housing all around it and with people clamouring to buy there so they could boast golf course views and greens at their back door.
A few stray balls in their backyards soon changed that idyllic view.
The next thing you know the owners of the course were forced to re-route a couple of holes to ensure they weren’t taken to the cleaners from somebody sustaining an injury.
Last I heard that battle was still raging.
My dream has always been to live either on a beach or on a golf course. And if you could somehow find a place with views of both, well, you were in Heaven.
If you’re smart enough to play golf AND live on a golf course then surely you would first do your research and buy a place beside a tee rather than a green where errant balls may be raining on you or, worse still, your kids, at any given time.
“Forget that idea,” one golfer at my club told me.
“Then you have to put up with a constant stream of golfers swearing and cursing as they cold top their drives or hit one into your neighbour down the street’s yard when they tee off.
“And that can start from daylight and continue right through until its dark,” he added.
And when I sat and thought about it, my favourite golf courses that I’ve played anywhere around the world are actually the ones with no housing around the fairways and a place where you can play with nobody watching over their back fence . . . and feel a thousand miles from civilisation.
Now that IS utopia.
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