Fairways torn up: Teens on e-bikes, dirt bikes cost golf course $60K in damages
By Rachael Perry
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PORT ST. LUCIE, Florida (WPBF) — A local golf club says it has spent roughly $60,000 in just three years repairing the damage caused by young adults on e-bikes and dirt bikes.
Matthew Boyd, the general manager at St. Lucie Trail Golf Club, says the young adults or teens continue to cause thousands of dollars in damage, and the golf club can’t do anything about it.
The most recent incident happened on Monday afternoon.
“Right around 4 or 4:15, we got a phone call that there were five kids on bikes going through, driving between members, going over and through the greens and fairways. Once they reached the sixth hole, they darted out of the road and onto the back gate,” Boyd said.
Like clockwork, Boyd said it happens every few months.
“This happens really about once every three or four months; Young adults driving or pedaling bikes throughout the golf course, trespassing, and creating vandalism,” he said.
Not only does he say the issue has created problems for employees and club members, but the financial impact has been huge.
“Thousands upon thousands of dollars, and if you factor in labor, I don’t even want to think about that as it comes out of my pocket,” Boyd told WPBF.
He said that the number comes out to more than $50,000 over the last three years.
“Before that, I could factor in more, just because we went through a greens renovation and during that time, we had to redo three green complexes because bikers did donuts on three of the brand-new greens, which was a huge expense,” he said.
The club is private and has no trespassing signs, which haven’t stopped the bikers. Boyd said any attempt to reason with them hasn’t been successful either.
“They’re incredibly unfriendly. They’ll use some words I cannot say here, and they’ll drive as fast as they can away from anybody chasing them,” he said.
Despite reporting the damage to the police, Boyd said he’s left wondering what can be done to stop it.
“The answer I’ve always received is there’s nothing we can or the police can do, or anybody can do, unless we can physically follow them to their home address and identify them on the golf course with pictures and videos,” he said.
As if the cost of repairs isn’t enough, Boyd said they’ve even lost employees over this.
“We’ve lost staff over the years, being frustrated with it, which is understandable, but it is disheartening for them more than anything to have to re-do things or re-go out there and fix areas that they just spent hours and hours working on,” he said.
Boyd said in a perfect world, the people responsible would stop, but he’s hoping parents will step in and educate their children on what it means to damage someone’s property.
“What frustrates me most is we were all kids growing up, and we all did things that we look back now and say, hey, I probably shouldn’t have done that, but these are repeat offenders constantly just going out there, joyriding, and the amount of vandalism they’re creating is taking its toll on everybody,” he said.
He said it’s important for them to understand that what they’re doing is both trespassing and property damage.
“I would really hope that parents can get involved and realize, hey, this is what my kid is doing, and the best course of action is just to educate them on, don’t go on private property. There’s more damage being done by bikes than they know of, and more importantly, if they do get caught, the repercussions are going to be astronomical at one point,” Boyd told WPBF.
In the meantime, he said, hopefully, awareness of the issue may discourage people from doing this.
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