Golf Balls Threaten Panels, Patrons Of Botanic Garden

GLENCOE, IL — Golf balls have been flying into the Chicago Botanic Garden, doing thousands of dollars in damage and causing concerns of possible injuries, yet neither the garden nor the neighboring Glencoe Golf Club has any plans to put up a net, the Glencoe News reports. In the 20 months since the Kris Jarontoski campus opened, 30 solar panels on the roof of a nursery have been damaged by incoming balls from the 16th tee of the publicly-run club.

Each panel costs around $300 to fix, for a total of approximately $9,000 in damage, said the garden's government affairs director, Beth Dunn. She told a meeting of Glencoe's sustainability task force that, in addition to the cost, the incoming projectiles present a possible safety hazard, according to the paper.

The general manager of the Glencoe Golf Club, Stella Nanos, said there was a meeting to discuss the issue last year and that the garden had been warned "that was not a great location because there would be errant shots." A spokesperson for the garden said the village never discussed the matter when the plans to build the nursery were first presented, according to the paper.

When errant golf balls cause damage, Nanos told Patch, the club seeks to find the person who hit them. She had no comment on who would be legally responsible for damage caused by balls leaving the course. There is no netting in place on the course and the garden currently has no plans to install netting to protect the panels and patrons of the garden. (Get Patch real-time email alerts for the latest news for Glencoe — or your community. And iPhone users: Check out Patch's new app.)

The Chicago Botanic Garden, owned by the Forest Preserve District of Cook County and managed by the Chicago Horticultural Society, attracts more than a million annual visitors. Taxpayer money from the district covers a third of the garden's annual budget.

The Glencoe Golf Club was one of the first municipal golf courses in the Chicago area when it opened in 1921. The golf club is charged a management fee, but the village does not collect it as a matter of policy. As a result, the club owes an increasing amount of cash, deferred fees and interests, and auditors have questioned whether the village will ever recover it, according to the village's Fiscal Year 2017 budget.

Operating as a 501(c)(3) and a public body under the jurisdiction of the Village of Glencoe, about half of the club's land is village-owned with the rest owned by the forest preserves. In June, the village and the forest preserve district approved an update to their nearly century-old land sharing agreement that clears the way for renovation and remodeling of the club. The planning process for this redesign has only just begun, according to Nanos, although a previous redevelopment plan envisioned an $8 million new clubhouse.

_{Top photo via the Glencoe Golf Club}