West Palm Beach’s celebrated new golf course was forced to temporarily close its driving range after hundreds of balls went sailing over protective netting in the first 10 days following The Park’s grand opening in April.
As many as 500 resin-coated projectiles bounced down adjacent Maddock Street, landed on Forest Hill High School property and generally startled anyone within reach of a wayward or far-flung swing.
The course has asked the city for permission to double the netting height to 150 feet to mitigate the spherical threat.
“There are kids walking to school and there are families that live there and you can’t risk on a daily basis having golf balls fly over that net,” said Tom Frankel, a trustee with the West Palm Golf Community Trust.
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At the same time, the driving range is an integral part of the facility, which was designed by golf course architects Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner with park co-founder Dirk Ziff.
“It’s something we have to have,” Frankel said about the range.
The request to raise the nets to 150 feet was scheduled to go before the City of West Palm Beach’s Zoning Board of Appeals on Thursday but was rescheduled to Aug. 3 after the meeting was canceled because the board lacked a quorum.
The course at 7301 Georgia Ave. initially got a waiver from the city that allowed the maximum height of the safety netting to be increased from a zoned 35 feet to 75 feet.
“It was grossly inadequate,” Frankel said about the 75-foot height. “I was totally surprised.”
Susanna Segura, the principal’s secretary at Forest Hill High School, said no one was hit by a ball, but the school did contact the course with concerns about finding balls in its courtyard and the potential for vehicles to be damaged.
“I had been collecting them,” Segura said about the golf balls. “I have about 20 on my desk right now.”
If approval is given to raise the netting to 150 feet it will follow a blessing already awarded by the Federal Aviation Administration. The FAA signed off on the increase in May saying the higher nets would not be a hazard to airplanes. The nets don’t need to be lit or marked to ensure aviation safety, the FAA said.
And it also wouldn’t be the first time the city has granted a waiver for higher nets at a driving range.
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In 2019, the Drive Shack golf entertainment complex near Palm Beach International Airport requested an additional 10 feet to add to its 150-foot nets citing “advancing technologies” that it expected would allow balls to be hit higher and farther.
“Golf clubs are evolving quickly and Drive Shack needs to ensure that for the next five to 10 years that there is no possible way the fence height could be compromised by a golf ball leaving the driving area,” an attorney representing Golf Shack wrote in its request.
According to a March story in the New York Times, professional golfers on the PGA Tour this year averaged drives of 297.2 yards. That’s 11 yards longer than in the 2003 season. The driving range at The Park is about 400 yards.
Eric Rein, Golf Operations Supervisor for Palm Beach County, agreed the refinement of golf equipment allows people to hit farther and higher. While people may not be hitting to the end of the range, a slice or stray shot could get over the net on the side. Rein also said some people may purposely try to hit over the net.
“I don’t want to believe it, but it wouldn’t surprise me if in a small number of cases that’s what’s happening,” Rein said.
The West Palm Beach golf course has been in the same location since 1947. Designed by heralded golf course architect Dick Wilson, it was considered one of the first notable course designs in the post-World War II era, according to Golf Digest.
But by 2018, it had fallen into disrepair and closed.
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The course was renovated through a public-private partnership between the city and PGA of America CEO Seth Waugh, now boasting an 18-hole course, a nine-hole short course, putting greens a clubhouse and restaurant and the driving range.
The range is equipped with TopTracer, a state-of-the-art tracking system that measures the distance, height and speed of balls. It’s one of the ways officials were able to measure how many balls were going over the net.
Frankel declined to say how much the upgrade in netting will cost, but is hoping the range will reopen by Nov. 1. In season, a large bucket of balls, which numbers about 70, costs $20.
“Not having the range open hurts the overall experience, not to mention, it’s a lot of revenue that we are currently not able to take in,” Frankel said. “Everything at The Park is perfect except for the range.”
Kimberly Miller is a veteran journalist for The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA Today Network of Florida. She covers real estate and how growth affects South Florida’s environment. Subscribe to The Dirt for a weekly real estate roundup. If you have news tips, please send them to kmiller@pbpost.com. Help support our local journalism, subscribe today.
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