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By Joel
Zuckerman
The Vagabond Golfer
I spend an inordinate amount of time on or around golf courses. Generally
speaking, the most desirable of these have little if any
housing presence. Classic links courses in Scotland and
Ireland lead this contingent. There are also the
parkland gems of a bygone era and contemporary, megabuck
courses that are constructed with a certain rusticity,
usually mountain masterpieces tucked deep in the forest.
But the reality of the situation is that in the modern
era, golf drives real estate, and real estate drives
golf. In many geographic areas, the two entities are
practically joined at the hip.
Personally, I live very near, but not actually on, golf courses in
Georgia and Utah. Over the years I’ve seen firsthand the
advantages and disadvantages my nearby neighbors have by
living adjacent to the playing fields themselves. Here’s
a brief index of the good and the bad in golf course
living.
• GOOD: Having an unbroken view of acres of
finely manicured lawn that requires no maintenance on
your part.
• BAD: Having a formerly unbroken window
shattered by an errant tee shot.
• GOOD: Watching the peacefulness of the wildlife
and the animals that scamper about the property.
• BAD: Enduring the animals that barrel around in
their golf carts past your property, littering and
cursing.
• GOOD: Being able to saunter out the back door
and play a hole or two at twilight.
• BAD: Not being able to go out the back door
without a flak jacket and catcher’s mask during daylight
hours.
• GOOD: Finding errant golf balls that come to
rest in your backyard.
• BAD: Twisting an ankle in divots taken by
recalcitrant golfers who conveniently ignore the
out-of-bounds-stakes on your property, trespass, and dig
trenches with their recovery shots.
• GOOD: The quietude and privacy of a backyard
with no fence or nosy neighbors
• BAD: Having to watch what you wear at all times
while in your own home, and enduring the moronic
comments of a parade of passers-by, many of them
repeating a variation on the same tired line, “something
smells good over there. Mind if we join you for dinner?”
It’s funny the first fifty times you hear it, but loses
its luster after awhile.
• GOOD: The tranquility of an address with
minimal car volume and traffic noise.
• BAD: The cacophony of mowers, tractors, leaf
blowers, beeping golf carts, and the occasional
misdirected golf ball that reverberates off of the
stucco or roof tile like gunshot. |
