Damage Control

When members of the University of Florida Golf Course green-keeping crew arrived at work on Saturday morning, Aug. II, they discovered that someone had left donuts—not the sugary kind, unfortunately, but the drive-in-a-circle kind favored by golf course vandals. Tire tracks marred the 9th green and the new putting clock (left), both of which had been sprigged with Tifdwarf bermuda grass only two weeks before, and thoroughly chewed up a sand bunker.

"Kids having fun," says project manager Tom Weber, downplaying the possibility that antigolf activists were behind the raid. "It stinks, it gets people upset, but in this case the damage is minimal." So minimal, in fact, that light raking and a rerolling of the affected surfaces had everything back to normal in a couple of days. "We're now blocking the construction entrance with a forklift when we leave at night," Weber says, "and we'll park tractors in the clubhouse driveway so no one can drive on the course." Still under consideration: giving the night-watchman assignment to the alligator that roams the course after dark.