From the Associated Press:
A Reno man has been placed on probation and fined $1,000 for shooting a golfer whose errant ball broke a bedroom window at his home.
Jeff Fleming, 53, was put on probation for up to five years in Washoe County District Court. He had faced as much as 10 years in prison and a $10,000 fine after he earlier pleaded guilty to a felony charge of battery with a deadly weapon.
The unidentified golfer who struck Fleming's house took a drop and was attempting to play his next shot on the Lakeridge Golf Course in September 2012 when Fleming fired a shotgun at him. The golfer, who was playing with a friend, was treated at a hospital for minor injuries to an arm and both legs.
Fleming's attorney, Larry Dunn, said Friday his client was just waking up when the stray golf ball shattered his bedroom window and sprayed him with glass shards. Fleming shot at the golfer from some 50 yards away in an attempt to scare him, not injure him, Dunn said.
The ball "came crashing through the bedroom window and it startled him, and he thought he was being shot at," Dunn told The Associated Press.
Stand-up comic Daniel Tosh talks about his underprivileged childhood: he grew up in a house on a public golf course ... on the right side of the fairway.
About three guys in the audience will laugh. Private club golfers tend to be better players, and when better players miss, they tend to hook the ball to the left; but public course hackers tend to slice to the right, so a house on the right side of a public course fairway gets bombarded.
About three guys in the audience will laugh. Private club golfers tend to be better players, and when better players miss, they tend to hook the ball to the left; but public course hackers tend to slice to the right, so a house on the right side of a public course fairway gets bombarded.
It's kind of funny how tens of billions of dollars of houses and condos were built right alongside fairways from about 1960 to 2000, yet now it just seems like an all-around bad idea.
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You're right, which is why most public golf courses are set up so that the maximum amount of slices off the tee end up somewhere on the course or if out-of-bounds in a fairly deserted area.
Sadly, being a good golfer, my wild drives are hooks and I've hit any number of houses, roads, parking lots, and apartment buildings.
Never hit anyone though.
I sliced a tee shot onto Chicago's Lake Shore Drive during rush hour. I thought my golf ball was going to cause a ten-car pileup. But, it took a half dozen huge bounces down the expressway for a quarter mile, somehow landing only between cars before dribbling off down a side street.
Cops like a big flat stretch of grass between the dark side of town and taxpayers. 'Greensward' got big in town planning in the 70s.
To what degree has technology influenced the amount of hook or slice in drive, or the way the game is played.
I am assuming that the modern club is substantially more advanced to allow for more power transfer and distances, and possibly hooks and slices? I have played with modern clubs, but not with older clubs, so I would have no idea how they would perform. All I know about the older clubs is that the drivers had a small club head, hence a player would be required or forced to have a very good, accurate, and consistent swing to hit the sweet spot. With today's modern club head, there is a bigger area, bigger sweet spot, and the clubs are more forgiving when mishit.
Were the clubs and the way the game was played in the 1950's-1970's of a lower power level that no one could have contemplated that building houses next to a golf course is a bad idea? Today it just seems to me that golf has turned into another d*** measuring contest for distance and power.
There's a particular house on the right (there happen to be several) of the 10th tee at Meadowbrook, a muni in St. Louis Park, Minnesota.
I bet I hit that house 10 times in high school. Always in front of an audience too.
Springtown Muni in Livermore CA.....we would launch our tee shots on the first hole and set off car alarms when they landed like mortar rounds on the street to the right of the fairway!
A sane man might have quit the game.
"Stand-up comic Daniel Tosh..."
Tosh.0 is vulgar, but funny and PC-free. Blacks are shown as they are in it and wimpiness is mocked. I was surprised.
That's a ridiculously light penalty. He must have paid his lawyer a fortune to get him off.
Peter
I worked with a man whose home flanked a fairway. Though I don't know which side of the fairway his house was on, he said that no drives ever struck his house, yet, as he was a devoted golfer he was delighted to be the recipient of an endless free supply of quality balls.
In P-Town, the Grad College is built directly on the golf course.
You spend your entire time there in deathly fear that you're gonna get smacked in the face by a golf ball travelling at 100+ MPH.
Not fun.
Over the years, I had a number of them land waayyy too close for comfort.
I am not a house or a condo but I am a bicyclist, and as a bicyclist I was struck by a driven golf ball, and it HURT. The thing hit one knee and then bounced and hit the other, with sufficient force and rapidity to draw blood from both and leave me still wondering which was hit first.
This was in Lubbock in 1989. I was pedaling north and the ball was heading...southwest, as I reconstruct the memory now. So, obviously a public course!
HOW long ago was plastic glazing invented again?!
I used to sub in my Dad's golf league. The toughest hole on the course was a 215 yard par 3 with houses to the right and a road along the left. Most of the league was hackers who would slice their tee shots onto the roofs of the houses. One day I hooked a 5 wood directly into the windshield of a minivan coming down the road. My foursome all stood there for a second like deer in the headlights. The minivan had come to a dead stop as soon as it got hit.
Eventually, the van pulled up next to the tee and a soccer mom yelled at us to be more careful. Didn't ask for insurance info, or anything. After the round, the teenager in the clubhouse said that a woman had called about her windshield and he asked us if we knew anything about it. Nope, we said, and then we skedaddled to a bar. I still don't know if I was liable for the windshield damage.
Comes the Revolution, if I am in charge - and of course I am - all bicyclists will be shot.
It is for the good of all mankind.
With today's modern club head, there is a bigger area, bigger sweet spot, and the clubs are more forgiving when mishit
Slices are a function of the angle of the club face, caused by the natural tendency of the hacker to swing with his upper body instead of lead with the lower body turn. If the face hits the ball at an open angle it's going to slice, and that sweet spot can be as big as a beer can.
The good news, maybe, is your slice will be further down the fairway.
I always thought clubs purportedly designed to compensate for a hook or a slice were a terrible idea. If they work, they're just ingraining a bad swing.
My sister lives in a development that's nestled into a golf course in South Carolina. I don't recall that she has a problem with her house being hit by golf balls, but the golf course has extensive water hazards, and being SC this means she has to watch out for the occasional alligator in her back yard. (I'm not just taking her word for it, I've seen them).
I still don't know IF I was liable for the windshield damage.
I didn't know that Democrats were allowed to post at iSteve.
Well, other than Twoof and Testing99.
Obviously.
What's the great attraction of living almost edge on to a fairway? You'll see a small white ball flying by in the air several times a day then not long after, two or three or four old men in a golf cart riding by in the same direction.
I once hooked a drive and broke the glass in a house's sliding door. Cost me $200 to replace it for the owner (who was very nice about the whole thing). I like to joke that it's my most expensive golf shot ... so far.
Shouldn't shooting somebody be attempted murder?
To Ray Sawhill:
My sister lived behind a golf course in Colorado for 8 years. Every summer she would lose a window or two to golf balls. Many of the golfers were caught red-handed. None were apologetic at all or ever agreed to compensate her for her loss.
Lee Trevino said: 'You can talk to a slice, but a hook won't listen.'
I've been hurt twice. Both low snap hooks. Once behind the ear on the tee block right of the previous green. Beware the left-hander.
And as A-G pointed out, there is no driver invented that can fix the slice of a determined man if he gets into that 'death position' at impact. Such a shot with high clubhead speed, right out of the screws, will only produce a more spectacular disaster. Add a left-to-right headwind for additional soul destruction.
Gilbert P.
What's the great attraction of living almost edge on to a fairway?
Because buying a property with acreage is expensive. 1/2 acre, 1 acre, 2 acres... that will cost you a lot of money if you live in a developed area.
But living on a golf course means that you can pay for a postage-stamp lot, while at the same time enjoying the expansive views of a country squire.
Here in Dallas, there are a lot of houses built next to the country clubs. They are pretty much the only ones that have a green view from their windows..
Note sure how I didn't think to refer to this iconic Cash image when the post came up originally.
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