No one made you buy a house next to a golf course. Keep quiet and don’t complain about golf balls in your garden

I once rented a flat very close to a railway line. The diesels used to sit on the tracks waiting for a signal to change. They would make that whooshing, hissing, sound that I like to think happens when the driver hits a handbrake. It was right outside my window.

Sometimes this would occur at two in the morning and would wake me up. I’m not going to lie to you, it was a pain in the arse. I did not like it.

What I did not do, however, was immediately get on the blower to Network Rail and serve them with a cease-and-desist notice. Or get the council’s enforcement team to hand out a noise abatement warning.

It was never a case of stop the noise or stop the trains.

Why didn’t I do this? It was obvious to me. No-one had stuck a gun in my back and forced me to rent this particular flat. I had chosen to take on a property in the distinct shadow of a district rail line. It stood to reason that trains would use it and they might pass my door at what I found to be inconvenient times. Such is life.

It was my fault. Maybe there were other options I didn’t explore. Again, my fault. I cracked on and didn’t bother the authorities.

I like to think I’m an enlightened soul in an age of idiots. Entitlement stalks everything we do, though I do enjoy those social media clips of people going apoplectic after a big six takes out the back window of their cars. Well, and I feel I will be repeating this point in various ways, you did park your car next to a cricket field.

We’re soon going to be at the point where a slog sweep is outlawed. It’s the same in golf.

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Why are you complaining about golf balls in your garden?

Imagine the nonsense of wanting to live in a house overlooking a golf course and then complaining about the odd ball ending up in your garden.

Even if a golf ball was so far off line that it pinged your roof or a greenhouse – THE GOLF COURSE WAS THERE FIRST.

At what point do you turn up for a viewing, check out the lovely environs of the very close by club, and not think to yourself, ‘there is a chance a few golf balls could end up where I’m standing’?

I realise health and safety is important. I haven’t completely fallen down the anti-woke Reform well. If there is the serious prospect of injury and if a house is being peppered with missiles like a vision of the Eastern Front then, of course, there needs to be a discussion about it.

But decades of traditions shouldn’t just judder to a halt because we can’t stand in a garden and do a quick estimate of trigonometry (I knew there was a reason we did it in school).

If you buy a house next to a golf course, you’ve got to expect the occasional close encounter with a fast-approaching spherical object. It’s alien to think otherwise.

Now have your say

What do you think of our Angry Club Golfer’s latest rant on golf balls? Should homeowners just suck it up, or should golf courses yield to health and safety concerns? Let us know with a comment on X.

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