Resident puts end to rogue driving range

Golf balls, golf club discovered and disabled by resident concerned about projectiles
Joe Lewandowski holds a golf ball Thursday that broke a pane in his neighbors townhouse window on O’Brien Drive off Florida Road.

Frustrated by golf balls whizzing through the air and pelting the eight-unit townhouse complex where he lives, one resident decided to take action.

Joe Lewandowski searched the location on the college mesa where he suspected the golf balls were being launched above his home on O’Brien Drive, off Florida Road. He discovered a golf club and a bag of golf balls off a trail about 150 yards from the parking lot of Hillcrest Golf Club.

“A golf ball flying down from above can be lethal. It has a lot of force from gravity behind it. It could kill someone if it smacked them in the head,” Lewandowski said.

A golf club and balls found by Joe Lewandowski on Thursday on college mesa above his townhouse on O’Brien Drive off Florida Road.

He suspects pranksters were having fun, either not realizing or caring about the danger they courted.

One pane of a window in the complex was shattered by a golf ball Thursday evening, and for the past several days, golf balls have been slamming into the sides of their homes.

“I disabled the golf club and took the bag of golf balls, and I left a note to whoever was doing this,” Lewandowski said.

He said he will turn over the club – a King Cobra 7-wood now broken into two pieces – and the bag of golf balls to the Durango Police Department to help with an investigation.

“We called police, and they did a drive-by of where we suspected the golf balls were coming from, but something like this is pretty tough for them to deal with,” he said.

parmijo@durangoherald.com



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