A Golf Course in Laguna Laurel

So home buyers “cherish a view of a golf course second only to an ocean view,” this, according to The Times business section (“Orange County Plays Catch-Up on Golf Courses,” July 9). Well, that explains it, but it doesn’t justify the potential loss of one unique and environmentally fragile coastal region which is the next target for golf course community construction. I’m talking about Laguna Canyon and the Irvine Co.’s planned “Laguna Laurel” housing project, which, if it ever succeeds, would put 3,200 homes, shops and services around a 276-acre playground for mattress magnates, or the likes thereof.

In the meantime, grading and construction of the golf course, homes, offices, pro shops, restaurants, gas stations and stores will irreversibly destroy Orange County’s last remaining natural and extraordinarily beautiful passage to the sea.

I shudder to think about the effects water and flood runoff will have upon the nearby ocean. The chemicals and pollutants that it will take to achieve the prestigious, manicured look preferred by golf course community homeowners (according to The Times) will undoubtedly burden an already overburdened sea. Not to mention the native coastal canyon animals and plants it will upset and destroy. Mule deer, bobcat, coyote and mountain lion aren’t the golfer’s greatest caddy companions.

I find it appalling that with an 18-hole Monarch Beach Course just a few miles down the coast and, not one but two 18-hole courses under construction just a few miles around the corner on the Irvine Coast, the developer plans yet another in Laguna Canyon. That’s getting bloody selfish.

The only “open space” these county Planning Commission-sanctioned golf courses provide is open space for those who like to follow little hard balls around once-beautiful native lands. Now come on, is that really civilized?

SHAREN HEATH

Laguna Beach