Golf and Houses

Filed in archive Golf News on March 23, 2007

The Scene of the Crime: Islington golf club, Toronto.
Courtesy: Robert Thompson

If you have ever lived in a house on a golf course, this post is for you.

If you have ever played on a golf course lined with homes, this post is for you.

Islington Golf and Country Club is an exclusive private club in Toronto designed by legendary architect, Stanley Thompson.

The club has been in existence since the 1920s.

But for the past 8 years, Islington Golf and Country Club has been fighting a legal battle in Canadian courts.

The battle involves one homeowner along the third hole at Islington.

I'm not going to give away the plot here. Instead I will direct you to this article, written by my colleague, Robert Thompson of the National Post.

When you have finished reading Robert's fine story, continue to the bottom of your screens and read an equally compelling comment from a reader.

Golf courses and homes are akin to airports and homes. The course or runway is laid out on vacant land far from dwellings.

Urban growth (or sprawl, if you prefer) encroaches on the course or runway (by now, busy airport) over the years and new homeowners begin to complain.

There is no easy or clear solution to this ongoing problem in our crowded world.

"Buyer Beware" isn't a legal argument. As the reader notes in his comment, a homeowner should expect all the rights of property ownership to apply.

Those rights, in fact, go back to the Magna Carta. For those who have forgotten, the Magna Carta was issued in 1215. That is what you call "deeply enshrined" rights.

As a sidebar note, I have played on such a course in the past. It, too, was alone among the trees until developers moved in, followed by homeowners.

I stood on the first tee and sliced three balls into someone's back yard. I didn't hear any smashing glass or yelping dogs.

I was lucky that day.