Golflogic.ca

Wendy and Kenneth Fox have run Silver Rill Corn Ltd., a farm market in the verdant landscape near Victoria BC, for the past 40 years. In 2004, a startling crop of golf balls appeared among the carrots, beets, bean, peppers, peas, broccoli, corn and strawberries. It turned out that a new driving range rezoned into the area’s farmland had just opened and as many as 100 balls a day would cross over the Fox’s property line.

Wendy Fox is now plaintiff in a court case expected to go to trial soon before the BC Supreme Court. When Fox first complained to her new neighbours, Island View Golf, she was ignored. Told by a city engineer that there was no driving range that could guarantee 100% containment, she next went to a Central Saanich Council meeting to ask for their help with the problem, taking with her a dozen supporters carrying 30 boxes of golf balls (10,000 to 12,000 in all). Fox intended to illustrate how much of a containment issue there was.

“The bottom line is that we have a 10-acre farm and we can only live and work on five acres,” Fox said in a telephone interview. “Their fences aren’t working. They’ve never worked. These are band-aid solutions.” The Council sent her to the Land Commission, which had originally rezoned the farm area to allow an A4 designation for the driving range. “Why would they do that without a buffer zone?” she asks.

The commission, in turn, notified Island View Golf, which – to their credit – spent $300,000 putting up poles and erecting new fencing. “At first, 100 balls came over every day and now there are 10 to 25 a day, but when you have people working the farm, even one ball is too many when you have the Workers’ Compensation Board breathing down your neck. I can’t ask workers to risk injuries from falling golf balls.”

In January 2007, Fox returned 12,000 more golf balls she had collected to Island View Golf. Fox, 53, is shouldering most of the farm and legal work because her husband is recovering from a bone marrow transplant, part of his cancer treatment over the last two years. During this same period, she became frustrated with the legal foot-dragging and lawyered up. “It’s hugely expensive to go to court,” she says. “But they (Island View Golf) still haven’t closed the upper tier, and the new posts they put up are less than 100 feet high. When we asked them to fix things, they keep asking for extensions and doing nothing. All we want is our land back.”

On June 15, the Supreme Court ruled in favour of the plaintiffs (Silver Rill) on a charge of contempt against the defendants (Island View Golf) for continuing to allow 81 golf balls to cross the Fox property between June 5, 2006 and June 14, 2006, “launched from the defendant’s golf driving range.” Island View Golf has to pay a $5,000 fine and court costs.

The contempt charge against Island View Golf fuels Fox’s cheerful resolve. “I’m not anti-golf, I like golf. It’s just that I don’t like it right next to me.”

Errant golf balls continue to fly into the Fox’s field from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. But Fox can no longer enjoy looking across the valley at night or watching the stars, because the driving range lights are on late. She can’t hear the frogs or crickets chirping over the sounds of the ball collecting machines running to midnight. Even if they wanted to sell their property they can’t: the 10 acres resides on agricultural land reserve.

While thousands of hooks and slices fade on her property, an equal number of balls fall onto a farm on the other side of the driving range. That family is waiting to see how the Silver Rill case works out before going to court. “They’re fence sitters,” says Fox.

Meanwhile, the couple wait for the trial date when they must prove that the Island View Driving Range constitutes a danger and inconvenience to the plaintiffs, their employees and others using the plaintiffs’ property. Fox must also prove that errant golf balls allege serious inconvenience and deny the residents of the farm reasonable use and enjoyment of their property.

Billing itself as “Vancouver Island’s No. 1 driving range” on its numerous television spots and its website, Island View Golf [http://www.islandviewgolf.com/index.html ] offers a monthly membership for $59.95, which provides “unlimited range balls.” There is little reason they should ever run out of those. By the time the trial opens Fox will probably have another 12,000 range balls to return to Island View Golf. This time she’ll let her lawyer drop them off.

NOTE: Through its attorney, Robert S. Gill, Island View Golf declined to answer any questions on the case.

This probably won’t surprise anyone, but me, I’m dumbfounded!  I was playing pretty well early this spring in Scottsdale, even though I had a rough winter health-wise, during which I gained about 35 lbs since September, due to severely irritated hypoglycaemia which went undiagnosed until about 3 months ago. 

So even my hopes that I would lose weight by becoming a vegetarian (which didn’t last long) and focusing on a lot of tofu and brown rice (which, thanks to the amazing bowls at Fresh, are still included in the foods I crave), still caused me to gain weight because my body simply turned ALL carbs into fat.  Fun.  Well, I’ve learned the only way to control hypoglycaemia is a strict no-carb diet for at least two months, and limiting fat intake to almost nothing if you want to lose weight.  This is exactly the same diet as Atkins (if you don’t need or want to lose weight) or Dr. Bernstein (if you do want to lose weight). 

Since I wanted desperately to lose the weight I gained from my hypoglycaemic carb-binges, I invested in The Bernstein diet to help keep me on track and ensure I could get from the vitamins I would need while limiting my foods to no fat or carbs for at least two months (probably three to lose all the weight I need to).  As many of you know I’ve also had time off from my day job, so I’ve really been enjoying the nice weather to get out and golf at least once a week, I’ve been biking all over the city (so dangerous, but exhilarating too) and in 6 weeks have lost 25 pounds.  more…

Just read this story on CNNSI.com.  This is great:

RENO, Nevada (AP) — A golfer’s attempt to get out of the rough and back on the fairway started a grass fire in Reno, Nevada, that burned about 20 acres near a golf course, officials said.

The golfer had knocked his ball into dry grass beyond the course on Monday afternoon, officials said. When he tried to play back to the fairway, his club struck something that created a spark.

“He was totally honest about it,” said Reno Battalion Chief Curtis Johnson.

About 50 firefighters responded to the blaze as it spread through tinder-dry grass, and engine trucks were brought in to protect nearby homes.

No buildings were damaged and no one was injured, officials said.

Congrats to Tiger and Elin Woods on their new baby girl, Sam Alexis Woods.

The baby arrived Monday and it really makes you wonder what would have happened if Tiger had managed to push the US Open to a Monday Playoff.  Tiger has always said family before golf…it would have been interesting to say the least!

Either way, congrats on baby Tiger

The final set of Toronto Yoga For Golfers workshops open to the public are coming up in the next week - Wednesday, June 20th at downtown Kings Golf Academy (6:15 - 8:15pm) and two Saturday June 23 at InnerGolf (10am-12noon or 12:30-2:30pm).  If you want to attend, contact them directly to register since space is limited.
Included in the workshops are these warm-up drills recommended by Chima McLean, the Pro at KGA, to work along with your warm-up [yoga] stretches so you can bring your best game every round through the summer.

Drill #3 - Driving Range (3-5 minutes)
•          With your feet only a few inches apart and using a pitching or gap wedge, begin by swinging slowly, making small pitches to a target 40-50 yards away. The technique should have no lateral weight shift in either direction. It is a gentle turn of the body away from the target and gentle turn of the body to the target (the back heel should come up off the ground). Your arm swing should be approximately chest high back, to chest high thru, and include a full wrist hinge back and a re-hinge after impact, including a slight rotation of the forearms.
•          If you turn your back to the sun, make some swings with no ball and observe that the end of the backswing and finish positions with the arms will look a bit like a letter “L” and a reverse letter “L”.
•          Your goal here is to take some small divots to help ensure the descending blow needed with irons and also to acquire a sense of gentle acceleration on the thru swing, thereby building a sense of rhythm.
If you’re new to our blog, the Warm Up Drills you should start with (after yoga, of course) before you hit the driving range, are Drill #1 (click here) and Drill #2 (click here).

Happy golfing this weekend!

He’s got all the attributes of a modern professional golfer, long hitting, great short game, good putter, and he has work extremely hard on his mental approach.  So can young Englishman Nick Dougherty follow up his extraordinary first round at Oakmont and run away with the US Open?  This very biased Engliishman hopes he can.

The current leaderboard has a real international flavour to it, with half of the top 20 hailing from outside the US.  I must mention the Canadians, Ames and Weir, who despite fairly average seasons by their standards are in good position after the first round.

The English hope doesn’t totally rest on Dougherty’s shoulders though, with Justin Rose, Ian Poulter, Lee Westwood and Luke Donald all within striking distance, this has the potential to be a great week for English golf.

And what of the course?  Oakmont showed some of the teeth that we were lead to expect, but it was more of a slight grimace rather that a full blown roar on day one, expect the USGA to hit back tomorrow!  I know a lot is made of the Church Pews, and they are impressive, but what first strikes me about this course are the square greens, I love the idea behind them, and something so simple can make a hugely dramatic impact on how the holes look.

The US Open has always had an elevated position within the Majors hierarchy, but with the USGA returning to ‘classic’ American courses (Oakmont, Pebble Beach, Torrey Pines etc) this great tournament will continue to hold all the prestige it deserves.

Here’s hoping to a weekend full of European (and Canadian I suppose) names packing the leaderboard, and a new name on that famous trophy.