Late last week, less than 24 hours after baskets were installed at the new Fort Bayard disc golf course, vandals struck — tipping or lifting those baskets, concrete anchors and all, out of the ground.
“It’s frustrating,” Santa Clara Village Administrator Sheila Hudman said about the needless destruction. “These kids have worked so hard. The goal is to improve the quality of life for our residents, not to damage what we have.”
The course has been in development through a partnership between the village and area disc golfer and retired educator Jerry Boswell.
The work being done to install the course is being undertaken by a Youth Conservation Corps crew led by Cobre Schools teacher Eric Adams. The crew is made up of high school kids from the district.
“We did all the work by hand,” Adams said, noting that very little heavy equipment is being used to aid youth crews in clearing vegetation, mowing fairways, building tee boxes and installing baskets and signage.
Adams had been out at the course late the evening before the vandalism to place padlocks to hold the baskets to the concrete anchors. At that time, he said, baskets for holes 1 through 9 and a practice putting basket were just as his crew had left them.
After being alerted that something was wrong the next morning, he drove to the new course to find that five of the baskets had been uprooted and were lying on the ground. One was broken at the base of its pole, and suspicious tire tracks were found in that area. The rest of the damaged baskets appeared to have been turned over by hand.
“We re-dug the holes at least three times,” Adams said, adding that he personally tested them before they were filled with concrete and poles were set. “I think it would have taken at least three people to work them loose.”
The good news is that work to put the course back on track…