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I love living on golf courses! We lived on a public one in San Clemente, CA and live on one now in HI. The Pros are: a beautiful backyard you don't have to maintain, a nice place to walk the dogs (the two we lived on didn't mind as long as you cleaned up and were considerate of the golfers), place for kids to run around (we had some kids boogie boarding down the hills during the rain yesterday - fun to watch!), you can play golf when everyone is done for the day, finding golf balls. We never had any property damage from golf balls though a neighbor had a window broken but that was very rare. I think you have to be pretty laid back to enjoy living on a golf course. If you care about kids playing on them/people out with dogs/ possible constant daytime noise from golfers then it may not work for you.
Cons: Lack of privacy, noise, potential property damage.
I really can't think of many cons since we love the lifestyle and we do use the golf course kind of as a backyard so don't mind when others do too.
We live on the 18th fairway. It's great, it's like having the most beautifully manicured backyard ever and never having to mow it! We enjoy sitting in our screen porch watching the golfers and it provides a never ending source of mild "entertainment". Our community allows iron or short picket fences if your backyard is on the course, but less than 5% of yards have any sort of fencing, unless they have a pool. Since we live at a lake, not many have pools. We were aware of the danger of poorly hit shots and we would not have chosen certain homes because of their proximity to the right side of the tee, but our location is VERY hard to hit a ball to, so we rarely find a ball anywhere near our house. As far as cart noise, our course has electric carts which don't make noise and most privately owned carts are electric too. Play here doesn't start until 8 am, so early morning mowing is always after 7 am and we're up by that time anyway, since we have to walk the dogs. We don't have the kind of tournaments where the public would be on the course, it's a semi-private course, so we do get a few outsiders playing, but they are pretty good about understanding the rules about not going into backyards for a ball. Personally, I never cross the property lines (marked by stakes) unless my ball is like 2-3 feet into the yard, and I can just reach in for it. Further than that, they can keep it. I probably got it for free anyway from walking the cartpath after play ends for the day. As far as privacy, we are very exposed to the course, many yards have more trees or shrubs for screening, but that impairs your view of the course. For me, I don't do anything in the backyard that I would be worried about anyone observing, so it's fine. Other joys of living on the course are after hours practice, walking the beautiful paths, and driving the cart out at dawn or dusk to enjoy the incredible scenery. After sunset, we practice our short game on our hole, and sometimes go play a few choice holes before it gets too dark to see the ball. We are about 200 yards from the clubhouse. but it's around a corner so we can't see it. We can walk over for lunch or a couple of beers on the deck and watch the golfers or hit at the range any day we like. For us there is no downside, except that our dogs can't run free in the backyard, but that is our choice not to build a fence, since the dogs are both over 13 years old. We have 3 courses here, and the community is still growing after 25 years, so we have no fear that the course will "go away".
Last edited by TheShadow; 10-06-2014 at 08:14 AM..
I had a home on the golf course. Never had a window broken, never had roof damage, never had a golfer come into my yard. Got lots of golf balls at the farthest part of the lot that abutted the golf course. They were usually brand new because it was the 1st hole. But rarely got any golf balls that came near the house or even within 80 ft of the house.
Here's the big negative, especially if you live next to the green/a hole. The grass on green which surrounds the holes....this grass is cut pretty much every day. They start cutting the grass just before day break. They start at the 1st hole and then go to the 2nd. This way they aren't delaying any golfers.
I lived on hole #1. Every morning they brought out the mower in a trailer. I guess it was an electric trailer that was attached to golf cart of some sort, because you never heard it driving back there. I would awake to the back lift of that trailer swinging open every morning while it was still dark. It had some kind of thick metal chain that made a clinging noise. Then a few seconds later the mower would start..then the green was cut(only took 5 minutes max). This occurred 7 days a week.
I have been gone from that home for a long time, but I still remember those noises- almost like they were permanently etched in my brain after hearing them 7 days a week.
Golf always got to a slow start on Jan 1st! Much later post times than all other days.
The golfers were never loud...maybe it's because they weren't drunk yet because it was the 1st hole.
I am an avid golfer but probably would never buy a home directly on a course. Golf is in a decline. Courses are shutting down and being repurposed, or are being let to revert to nature at a high rate. My uncle lives on a course in Florida that shut down 8 years ago and was left to nature for a housing development that never happened.
I always liked the saying "don't buy a home for the view unless you own the view."
Crawlspace issues...water after heavy rains doesn't always go where it's suppose to go.
What does that have to do with golf course living?? Poor drainage can happen anywhere and is something that should be investigated during a pre-purchase home inspection. Any potential homebuyer should be looking at drainage and crawlspace issues before buying any home. If anything a properly designed golf course would have better than normal drainage since casual water on the course is undesirable.
It rained 2 inches yesterday and, as always, the water drained out to the course and into the drainage system culverts as it was designed to.
Thanks for the reminder about the dangers. I will never consider a home on a golf course again. To me, the danger of being hit or having my home or car damaged would outweigh the beauty of the course.
And also, the fact that the course can close down and be made into something else not so beautiful. I was looking at some condos around Hot Springs, AR that were pretty nice but going for cheap prices. I kept thinking, what's the catch? After lots of digging, I found out that the golf course was closed down. Aha!
We lived on a couple of golf courses. The trick is to be on one where the golf course does not provide such a great close up lawn view. Ours had several yards of pine trees between course and back of the back yard. Greenery on the ground that grew but never high...and it was our property so golfers didn't come on it. And high enough I guess so that it was unattractive to golfers to walk through. We loved the feeling of space and knowing no homes were right behind us and having a chair level view across the course. And we never heard the golf course sounds. Lovely place to jog with a few ponds and a few geese.
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