Driving Range Hits on Possible Solution

Times Colonist

Driving Range Hits on Possible Solution

By Kim Westad

Wendy Fox casts a wary eye at the towering crane on the driving range next door to her family's bustling farm market in Central Saanich. 

The crane is being used to add up to 16 metres in height of netting to the driving range -- netting that might finally make peace between neighbours both trying to earn a living on agricultural land. 

Will the addition, which will leave the Island View Golf driving range with the highest netting in Canada, finally cure the problem that has divided the Central Saanich businesses? 

"I hope so, I really hope so," Fox says wearily. She has been working full tilt, getting the family's signature Silver Rill corn to market, and has grown tired of picking up golf balls on about five acres that she can't plant because of the safety hazard caused by errant golf swings. 

The balls fly over the current 26-metre netting, into the Silver Rill cornfield on one side and a hay field on the other. Fox said she has gathered 16,000 balls in the last year-and-a-half. 

"This is not only a farming issue. I cannot walk on the land between 9 a.m. and 9 p.m. without risk of being hurt by a golf ball," Fox said. 

She can't ask workers to tend to crops on the land, because they, too, could be hurt. So the land hasn't been planted for the last two seasons. 

Driving range general manager Sean McNulty says he "just wants to get along. We want to solve this once and for all." 

McNulty, too, hopes the netting will mean the end to a problem that has seen the neighbours, who have never actually met face to face, fighting in court and before the Agricultural Land Commission.

The commission ordered the driving range to raise the height of the netting that is supposed to keep the balls on range property. Depending on the slope of the land, the netting will almost double in some areas. 

McNulty said a mathematician and golf expert were hired to study the problem. 

With the new netting, "99.9 per cent of the balls will stay within the netting." 

Even before the upgrade, the netting already was three metres over the industry standard, he said. 

About 20,000 golf balls are hit on average each day at the popular driving range. 

This season, the range has been restricted to using only its lower deck. The upper deck, with lounge chairs and a view of the water, was shut down by the commission because its height meant more balls were escaping the property. 

Once the new netting is complete, likely the second week in August, the upper deck will be open, too. 

McNulty said lost balls cost the range 50 cents each. 

The total cost of the netting, including experts' reports, is about $250,000, he said. 

"We're here to stay so it's in all our best interests to get along and make this work," McNulty said. 

He suggested that Fox simply does not like the idea of a driving range next door to the farm. 

Fox scoffed at this, saying: "I just want to be safe, and have my employees safe, and be able to use my land." 

The Foxes even went to court, winning an injunction forbidding the driving of golf balls onto their property. 

Fox said they will go back to court in August, alleging that the injunction has been breached by the range.