Golf has become my post-retirement passion. I’ve written about it here. Now that I’m a registered Bendite (Bend, Oregon that is), I’ve been hitting up some of Central Oregon’s courses. Five so far: Juniper up the road in Redmond, Widgi Creek in Bend on the road to Mt Bachelor (the nearest volcano), Meadow Lakes – a muni in Prineville, Crooked River Ranch near Terrebonne and the one I’ve adopted as my ‘home’ course, River’s Edge in Bend.
River’s Edge – so named because it nestles up to the Deschutes River – features some fairly spectacular scenery owing to its location on the side of Awbrey Butte. While the scenery off the butte is far better on the west side where you can see a string of Cascades volcanoes – Mt Bachelor, Broken Top, the Three Sisters and Mt Jefferson – the east side where the golf course is located offers expansive views of Central Oregon. It’s quite impressive, I think.
My house is at the base of Awbrey Butte, so River’s Edge is almost walking distance, were it not for the up and down elevation change created by the butte. Five minutes in a car, tops, gets me from my garage to the golf course parking lot. So, it’s natural that I want River’s Edge to be my home course. You don’t really need a ‘home course’ – you can just just play wherever you want, whenever you want. But golf courses almost always offer membership discounts and I bought one at River’s Edge.
One of the problems with my choice is that River’s Edge is extraordinarily difficult for average, short hitters like myself. With many shots, if you’re a bit off, you’re in big trouble. I’m not accurate enough to be comfortable hitting those shots.
But that’s not what I want to talk about. I want to talk about how golf courses co-exist with their community and River’s Edge has a huge, glaring problem in that regard. Bend is an outdoor paradise, with the city, county and state offering lots of parks, trails and other recreational outlets. I love it. One of the more popular is the Deschutes River Trail, a developed path that runs a long way along the Deschutes River. The scenery is great, it’s accessible along its route at many places, and it of course runs along the river.
It also runs through River’s Edge Golf Course. The interaction between the two is short but significant. Really, it’s just one hole. You can see it on Google Maps:
(I apologize for the lengthy link – I suppose I could use tinyurl but I’m not space limited here, so why bother)
If you look at the bottom center of that view, a little to the left, you will see a set of tee boxes for the 3rd hole of the course, located to the right of NW Fairway Heights Dr (tee boxes are small, grassy areas where golfers start a hole, where they hit their first shot of the hole). They are to the left of the Deschutes River Trail, which is labeled on Google Maps. Looking NNE, you will see the fairway for the 3rd hole. It is on the other side of the trail, meaning golfers must hit across the trail from the tee box to the fairway. Not only that, note that because the 3rd green is located a fair distance up at the end of the fairway (the 3rd is a par 4), the proper line for the tee shot is not that far off the line of the trail. It doesn’t take much of a mishit to send a golf ball straight up the trail, where people are walking.
I’ve played this hole from the tee box three times now and it has scared the shit out of me each time. There are no warning signs for the golfer, nothing to say ‘beware of people on the path in front of you’. There are warning signs for the trail users but they are inadequate. Imagine you are out with the kids, the family, the dog, walking the Deschutes River Trail. You see a sign saying to watch out for golf balls. Really? What are you, a trail user, going to do to minimize the danger? Run as fast as you can through the area? That actually would be a good idea but how many people will? And if the golfer hits an errant shot that heads down the trail? What is he or she going to do? The traditional warning is to yell FORE!, but that really only is effective for people on a golf course who are, or should be, cognizant of what it means. For non-golfers who aren’t really expecting it (despite the signs), I think a common inclination would be to turn your head towards the sound of the person yelling FORE! and thus get hit directly in the face by a high speed golf ball.
It’s not safe. The last round I played using that tee box, I waited for a woman, two kids and a dog to make their way far enough up the trail to be what I thought was safe. They weren’t. Probably because of my anxiety, I blasted a shot that hooked and headed straight for them, or where I feared they would be (they were out of sight). Horrified, I still thought to refrain from calling out a warning, hoping no one would get hit, but not wanting to risk a face shot. Fortunately, no one was hit, but I found my ball on the left side of the trail, meaning it traveled along and across the trail and really could have hurt someone.
It’s not safe. With warm weather, more and more people flock to the Deschutes River Trail. Golfers will not be able to wait for the trail to clear.
The solution is to redesign the hole. Make it a par three by putting the tee box on the other side of the trail, maybe halfway up the fairway. That won’t eliminate the danger, but a mid-iron shot that isn’t aimed across the trail is far less dangerous to bystanders than a ball coming off the face of a full-force driver, as it is now.
For myself, I now play the hole by dropping my ball on the fairway (on the other side of the trail) at a distance I figure would be right for my average tee shot.
geonuc 