A repeated rain of golf balls plague these Minneapolis neighbors

People who live next to a city golf course can expect a wayward ball to wind up in their yard every once in a while. But for the households across the street from the fourth hole of south Minneapolis’ Hiawatha Golf Course, golf season is synonymous with an unrelenting barrage of balls that pockmark their siding and shatter their windows.

“Everybody in our general area has their little basket of golf balls,” said neighbor Tyler Page, whose windshield was smashed by a golf ball earlier this summer.

He believes the problem lies with the course’s layout, which challenges golfers to tee off parallel to the short fence separating the course from the neighborhood.

“Everyone in our family has almost been hit by an errant ball multiple times, and we frequently witness pedestrians and vehicles on 43rd ducking or dodging to avoid balls,” Page wrote to the board of park commissioners in June. “We cannot be anywhere outside our home without constantly needing to look over our shoulders for golf balls.”

Neighbor Jean Cameron said her husband was struck by a golf ball while eating lunch outside, and about a year ago, a ball crashed through the window of their breakfast nook, spraying broken glass everywhere.

Another nearby resident, Susan Rose, grew up across the street from a golf course in Wisconsin and never had golf balls fly off course as often as they do on this side of Hiawatha, she said. Her daughter was once hit while biking down 43rd Avenue.

“It’s a little crazy,” said neighbor Danica King, who hands off her buckets of errant balls to her golfer brother. “We have all known, within just the past two years, people who have had their car windshields, like, shattered at some point.”

The ongoing redesign aims to satisfy many constituencies of park users with different desires for limited parkland, including the Black golfers who want to see the history of racial integration enshrined there, Native American environmental activists who want to clean up the lake formerly known as Bde Psin, trail walkers who revile the fence that prevents them from enjoying the lakeside and those who want to see the land used for more sports than golf.

The neighbors hope the redesign process will bring relief from unwanted golf balls. But they’re worried their feedback won’t resonate with park officials, some of whom have tried to help and others who have been reluctant to believe the extent to which badly placed shots are interfering with neighbors’ lives.

Emails show that during the 2023 season, former Park Board golf director Larry Umphrey moved the tees at the fourth hole farther away from the houses, which essentially took care of the neighbors’ problem. But after a while, unhappy golfers moved the tees back to their original positions, Umphrey left the Park Board, and the errant balls resumed.

Park Board staff declined to answer why attempts to redesign play at the fourth hole ended after that.

“They bought the house next to it,” Park Board lawyer Brian Rice told the Minnesota Star Tribune. “It’s an existing condition. That’s like saying, ‘I bought a house on the freeway, and then all sudden, I don’t like the noise.’ Well, okay, you bought it.”

Rice cited a state law granting cities immunity from personal injury lawsuits that arise from users of park services, and pointed neighbors to the Park Board policy stating golfers must self-report errant shots to the clubhouse because they’re personally responsible for any resulting damage.

But there’s no record of any golfer ever owning up to hitting a ball off-course, according to park communications staff.

That’s a marked difference from the buckets, boxes and drawers full of golf balls that the neighbors say they’ve collected.

With the Park Board claiming immunity, conflicts have flared between neighbors and golfers.

The times when Page happens to hear a ball strike his house, he has sprinted out to the course to confront the responsible party. With the exception of one honest golfer whose ball did minimal damage, the players never admit fault or provide their real contact information, he said.

“It’s a good way to create the illusion that there’s something to do,” she said. “That is what we thought at first when we called and they did move the tee, and everything got better. ... So we felt like that was an acknowledgement that they know there’s a design flaw.”

The Hiawatha Golf Course redesign concepts recently released by the Park Board include trails that will bring walkers through the course, and a learning center to hone golfers’ accuracy.

Project manager Tyler Pederson said the designs factored in the neighbors’ complaints by pushing the tees farther away from their homes and modifying the angle of play. With their overall goal of making Hiawatha Golf Course more accessible to a larger cross-section of park users, staff are intent on minimizing the chances that anyone gets hit by a golf ball, he said.

Feedback will be accepted on the concepts through the end of August. Park commissioners are expected to choose a preferred redesign concept for Hiawatha Golf Course by spring 2026. Construction may begin in 2030.