If you build your house at a golf fairway bend

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If you build your house at a golf fairway bend, the responsibility is yours.
I totally disagree with the award.

Mass. family wins $5 million verdict from country club after property hit by over 600 golf balls
https://news.yahoo.com/mass-family-wins ... 58994.html

"The Tenczars originally sued both Indian Pond and Spectrum Building Inc., which built their new home in Kingston, about 40 miles south of downtown Boston."

"The Tenczars' attorney, Robert Galvin, said he understands skepticism about his clients' dismay over errant golf balls, knowing they were buying property that abuts the 15th hole."

"The couple's home is at the bend of a severe leftward curve in the course. So golfers seeking to "cut the dogleg" would regularly blast off the tee in hopes of clearing a tree line — but end up hitting the home instead, the Tenczars claimed."

View of course ringed by houses;
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Kings ... 70.7284785

Probably building some sort of fence would help?

The incidents that cause golf balls to strike the house originate with golfers on the golf course.  Thus, it is the responsibility of the golfers and/or the golf course owners to prevent golf balls from striking the house -- there are numerous tennis courts, golf course, and baseball fields here in California that have erected fencing to keep errant balls from striking nearby houses and vehicles, so the precedence has been set.

Golf courses around here have that netting suspended from nine gazillion foot tall poles that ring the courses to keep the balls from flying out. The golf course should ring the approaches to the house with that sorta netting.

My attitude toward such things may be a bit biased by a lifetime of seeing things such as, for example:

The City of Virginia Beach, Virginia, allowing a couple housing developments to be built on previously vacant land underneath the flight path of Oceana Naval Air Station ...
... and eventual residents complaining about the aircraft noise;
"But if we'd known the airport was that close/that busy ...."
(Even though Google Earth did not exist at the time, 1980s, 1990s, there were paper maps available from the State, the City, several car insurance companies, KMart, Sears, and if map reading wasn't your thing you could merely LOOK UP! ...)


The time a family bought a new house with its back wall literally 15 feet from a dormant railroad track ...
"But the realtor told us the railroad would never use the track again."
(The realtor, eh) Did you confirm that with the railroad?
"We didn't have to ask the railroad because the realtor told us."
(So you went only by the word of the guy who had a vested personal interest in relieving you of your money?)


The time a couple retired and bought an oceanfront house sitting up on posts over the surf & a hurricane came along and the storm waves knocked the floor out of the house while leaving the walls and roof ...
"But if we had known hurricanes were like that we wouldn't have bought the house."

Location location location

https://youtu.be/pejQAaj7MDM

When planes fly, it is assumed they make noise.

When tracks are laid, it is assumed trains use them.

When hurricanes blow, it is assumed they destroy houses.

However, when golf balls are struck, it is generally assumed that the golfer will make them fly toward the green, and not into a nearby house.

Certainly, but the general assumption is that the golfer should have enough control over the ball to keep it on the golf course, and not hit a house outside the golf course, especially one that is not on a direct line from the tee to the green.

Consider a more extreme example: A house is knowingly erected within 1km of a firing range, not on a direct line from the shooting stand to the target.  If a stray bullet from an AR-15 strikes and kills one of the occupants of the house, who is responsible?

Golf can be a very difficult sport. Amateurs always have trouble controlling the flight of the ball.

Consider what happened with President Gerald Ford back in the 1970s. He became famous for hitting spectators with his golf shots.