Caltrans Cries ‘Fore’ : Errant Golf Balls Add to Freeway Perils

When right-handed golfers slice a shot, the ball veers unpredictably to the right, usually producing a few extra strokes on the score card, a lost golf ball and maybe a little cursing.

When they slice at Westlake Village Golf Club, however, the result can be shattered windshields for cars and trucks on the Ventura Freeway.

On April 27, authorities noted the latest example of what happens when automobiles meet a hard rubber sphere launched off a club face at speeds of up to 170 m.p.h.

Lynda Nichols and her three children were on their way to a Sunday morning church service when a ball hit the windshield of their van. The glass directly in front of her 4-year-old son was smashed, though no one was hurt.

“I never saw it coming,” recalled Nichols, 36, of Thousand Oaks. “I heard a loud bang, and the windshield was cracked.

“After the shakiness passed, I got angry. It very easily could have caused a serious accident. You could easily panic.”

Vexatious Problem

The quirky yet hazardous problem of golf balls flying onto the Ventura Freeway has vexed traffic engineers at the state Department of Transportation for years.

Caltrans officials point to three golf courses along the Ventura Freeway as sources of the trouble: Westlake Village, Los Robles in Thousand Oaks and Camarillo Springs in Camarillo.

The flying golf balls have not caused any known injuries or collisions, but highway engineers and police officers say the situation constitutes an accident-in-waiting. They worry that the balls could startle drivers of cars or hit motorcyclists with deadly force.

The 19-year-old Westlake course is owned by Westlake Village Associates, which is controlled by billionaire developer Daniel K. Ludwig. The 18-hole, 91-acre facility straddles the Los Angeles-Ventura county border south of the freeway, most of it in the Los Angeles County city of Westlake Village and the rest in Thousand Oaks in Ventura County.

One Ball Daily

An average of one ball a day clears the Westlake course onto freeway property, and about three vehicles have been reported struck in each of the last two years, said Arnold Mahelona, a state traffic engineer.

But Mahelona believes that many motorists never report their split-second encounters with golf balls. “A lot of people passing by don’t know what hit them. They see a dent and think it must have been a rock,” he said.

Responding to complaints by Caltrans, in 1984 the Westlake Village course erected a 30-foot-high fence to block balls hurtling away from one tee toward the freeway. The club also shortened another hole by building a new tee alongside a wall of trees.

But the balls kept coming.

The Nichols incident prompted Mahelona to visit the Westlake Village course as well as the other two on May 5 to urge golf course managers to correct the problem. Caltrans engineers are now combing the freeway weekly to determine precisely how many balls escape the Westlake links, where the problem is viewed as being more acute.

Tee’s Location Changed

The manager of the Westlake course agreed to close off an old tee thought to be the source of many errant balls and replace it with one closer to a fence, thus angling the hole away from the freeway.

Douglas R. Strang, the Westlake course manager and golf pro, pledged to further redesign troublesome holes if balls continue to reach the freeway. He said rangers who patrol the course in golf carts have also been told to watch for players who hit balls toward the freeway.

“We don’t want anybody to get hurt. We’re totally concerned,” said Strang. He added that the golf course has already spent about $18,000 to mitigate the traffic hazard.

The club pays for damage caused by flying golf balls, he said, such as the $240 it cost to replace the windshield on Nichols’ van.

“Now, everybody who has a broken window in Westlake Village and Thousand Oaks says it happened from a golf ball,” Strang said.

The traffic problem stems not only from erratic amateur golfers, but from deliberate attempts by irate or mischievous players to drill balls onto the freeway, authorities said.

“We’ve got some weirdos playing golf, too,” said CHP Officer Dan Speight.

Speight said a related hazard develops when motorists stop their cars on the freeway to search for shiny new golf balls. Speight said those drivers are cited for making a non-emergency stop.

At Los Robles Golf Course, three holes have been singled out by Caltrans as points of origin for wayward balls.

Course manager Angelo Ruggiero said two of them have been redesigned in recent years to steer balls away from the roadway, but that additional trees would be planted to provide a protective barrier.

Ruggiero said that, in his 21 years as manager, fewer than 20 drivers have brought claims against Los Robles for damage from golf balls.

At Camarillo Springs, attorney Steve Hofer said there has been only one claim of vehicular damage in two years. He said plans for building a hotel next year on three holes that front the freeway will eliminate the danger of balls hitting motorists.