Fore! – Council OKs Plan to Keep Golf Balls Out of Tennis Courts

There are budgets to wrestle with and big hires to manage. But sometimes for the City Council in Coronado – a resort town where people love their golf and their tennis – there are disputes to mediate.

For some time, tennis players at the have been dodging errant golf balls from the nearby .

Some have been hit. At least one person required emergency care. For more than a year a committee of golfers, tennis players and residents have been looking for compromises.  

They came up with what Recreation Director Linda Rahn called a “one- solution-at-a-time approach.”

The first is to plant a hedge, which will eventually grow to 5 feet, along the tree line near the tee box on the 15^th hole, and lower the box by two to three feet.

“This will guide golfers to drive balls (in the) appropriate direction, away from the tennis courts,” Rahn said.  

If the hedge doesn’t protect tennis players, the committee proposed three other steps the city could take:

• Creating a boundary with vegetation to let people know where the golf course stops and the tennis courts begin.
• Erecting an 18-foot fence to extend toward the fairway. “It would be placed between the tree line and the courts so that it wouldn’t block views to the bay and would blend into the tree line,” Rahn said.
• Adding metal lattice on the sides of the patio trellis at the back of the tennis center.

The council offered unanimous support for planting a hedge and also discussed the possibility of approving one or more of the additional steps.

The idea of creating a boundary to show where the tennis courts end and the golf course begins drew some support. “Children wandered onto the golf course,” said Roger Miller, director of golf services.

Council members Carrie Downey and Mike Woiwode were willing to consider it, but Mayor Casey Tanaka didn’t see any safety value in a boundary at this time.

He did see a need for verbal warnings for golfers. “This is an unusual hole. You can hurt somebody,” he suggested.

Councilwoman Barbara Denny said the committee’s offer of one solution at a time "made the most sense and was the most cost-effective way to go.”

The expected costs:

• The hedge, $19,355,
• The boundary, $8,594,
• The fence, $10,271, and 
• The lattice, $32,000. 

Money for the hedge already has been approved, so work on it can commence. The other steps will require council approval before they can be implemented.