Members and staff at the Westgate Golf Club in Spotwood are fed up with the repeated vandalism of their course.
The latest incident occurred on the evening of Monday, January 20, when a group of teenagers did burnouts on the eighth green with an electric bike.
The electric bike, similar to those used for food deliveries, had wide tyres that tore up the surface of the green, causing extensive damage and making it unplayable.
A temporary green has been mowed into the eighth fairway while the green is repaired, which Westgate GC superintendent Brett Hardeman said was a long and expensive process.
“The value to replace a full green now can be anywhere from $30,000 to $50,000,” he said.
“And that doesn’t include the man hours to get that sort of work done.”
Mr Hardeman said the vandals came in through a gate that was left unlocked for rubbish collection, something they would’ve known because they were the same group who had attacked the course on two previous occasions in the past 12 months.
“I’ve got no doubt it’s the same people,” said a frustrated Mr Hardeman.
“Same damage, same type of bike.”
Vandalism has long been an issue for the public course that sits on either side of the West Gate Bridge, with one member telling Star Weekly that he could recall at least 12 serious incidents in his 16 years playing at Westgate.
Speaking on behalf of the club, Westgate GC pro-shop manager Andy McIntyre said the club had previously avoided reporting the vandalism to police because they knew those responsible were a group of local kids.
“Last time it happened we put up some posts on social media on local neighbourhood pages and we got lots of responses,” he said of how the club addressed the problem instead.
“They are children and we were hoping the parents would do something and we didn’t see them for quite a long time so we thought that maybe it had worked and suddenly it happened again.”
He said the club was still considering whether to report the latest incident to police, but would likely do so if the vandals strike again.
“There’s definitely a feeling that everyone’s had enough of it.”
