About the Author
WALLY NELSON began his writing career as an engineer. He has written and lectured extensively on space exploration. Publications include an aerospace text and numerous articles in technical journals. Service in the 34th Infantry Division and liberation from Stalag VIIA during World War II preceded graduation from the University of Wisconsin. His careers include engineering, sales management and publishing. He lives in Titusville and is now writing about the consequences of uncontrolled business ethics.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
CHAPTER 2 HISTORICAL BACKGROUND The home owners living alongside the golf driving range of the Royal Oak Golf Club (ROGC) complained about golf balls hitting their homes and threatening personal injury and property damage. Some people said the driving range was there before the home owners moved in and, therefore, they had no right to complain. The home owners did not believe this was an acceptable defense unless it could be demonstrated that the ROGC driving range was developed by an established golf course architect. Golf course architects have safety requirements for the design of golf courses and associated driving ranges. In the early stages of this dispute, records were sought concerning safety in the design of the ROGC driving range. Such records were never produced. Nevertheless, long after this dispute developed, a golf course architect, and a member of the American Association of Golf Course Architects, came forward and testified in a deposition that the design of the ROGC driving range was substandard. He also testified in the deposition he believed the driving range was never designed by any golf architect. Had the ROGC management pacified the home owners when they first complained, it seems likely that friendly relations would exist between all parties today. Because they didn't, a long and bitter legal dispute developed. The dispute continued long after it was settled in court ordered mediation. Most ROGC members and Titusville citizens seemed to have little knowledge of how the driving range came to exist. Jack Cox began developing the Royal Oak community in 1963. He built a golf course and then subdivided the land around the fairways into building lots. Royal Oak became a community of upper middle class citizens. At conception, the developer seemed to recognize the need for a practice area for golf course patrons. On the original rezoning resolution he incorporated a rectangular area between the tenth fairway on the west and north and eight building lots on the east. A buffer zone surrounded the rectangular plot. The developer hired golf course architects Dick Wilson and Robert von Haage to design and build the Royal Oak golf course. Before constructing the golf course, the patch of land occupied by the tenth fairway and practice area did not have a canal on the west and north. Digging the canal reduced the total acreage shared by the tenth fairway and practice area as shown on the rezoning resolution. Then the architects built the tenth fairway cutting sharply across the northwest corner of the driving range area. This reduced the size of the landing area in the driving range. Next, the developer built the golf course maintenance shed. This building, parking lot, and material storage area occupies a strip of land twenty to thirty yards wide and one- hundred yards deep on the left side of the driving range tee. This step reduced the width of the driving range. Then the developer built a practice green on the southwest corner of the driving range tee. This reduced the number of available tee boxes. He compensated for the reduction by increasing the depth of the tee. This shortened the landing area of the range and exposed more home sites to errantly hit range balls. Over the years, the depth of the tee increased from fifteen to fifty yards. The developer reduced the width of the driving range in 1971 by replatting the lots on the east boundary. Eight lots became twelve lots. The west boundary of these new lots moved as much as one-hundred feet into the driving range. This further reduced the width of the landing area. The Canadian Professional Golfers Association (CPGA) acquired the Royal Oak Golf Club (ROGC) in the late seventies. They hired a golf architect named Lloyd Clifton who worked with the Greens Committee. A Greens Committee report recommended that a row of cherry laurel trees will be planted along the edge of the practice tee to give some protection to houses situated in this area. Not long after these trees were planted, they all died. The houses situated in the area remained exposed to the range ball threat. The developer succeeding Mr. Cox planned to build a group of high rise condominiums on the driving range property. The City denied the re-zoning application. This meant the use of the land would continue to be a practice area for golfers. At the time, houses did not exist on most of the home sites along the east side of the range. Golfers hit balls into these lots without fear of hurting people or doing property damage. No one was living there to object. The tenth fairway sand trap became the focal point of other driving range encroachments. Initially the cart path was left of the sand trap. As time went on, it shifted to the right side. Eventually the cart path was paved. Then the Club planted trees on the right side of the cart path to protect golfers moving along the path. As these trees grew, the width of the landing area for the driving range became smaller. This encouraged golfers to hit range balls toward the Trevino Circle homes. In 1989, the Club planned to reroute carts to the opposite side of the tenth fairway. Carts drove along the left side of the tenth fairway temporarily. In early 1992, the Club erected a ten foot chain link fence along the right side of the cart path. It provided protection for golfers traveling along the cart path. In late 1993 the Club management eliminated the tenth fairway sand trap. They moved the ten foot chain link fence to the left of the cart path. Then they re-erected it to pass through the area where the sand trap had been. In addition, they transplanted twenty full grown palm trees along the right side of the fence. An access road and fence border the east side of the maintenance shed. Overhanging the fence is a heavy growth of shrubs which project into the driving range a short distance off the tee. This overhang causes patrons in the first few tee boxes on the west side of the tee to aim their practice hits directly at the homes on the right side of the driving range. These particular tee boxes receive the most use because they are next to the range ball dispenser.
In 1988, CPGA golfers began migrating to ROGC in greater numbers each winter golf season. People said that during the season, no golf course in the country boasted as large a population of professional golfers in continuous residence. These golf pros needed access to a practice range. A clash of interests with the Trevino Circle home owners became inevitable. This book tells the story of the clash.
