In overdeveloped states like Florida, each county has its share of packed neighborhoods. Where you don't walk to the neighbor's porch to borrow some eggs. You just open a window, reach out and tap on their window. Which is a couple of feet from yours.
Lots of modern residential developments are like this in a Florida. The place where a 'yard' is having enough space on the side of the house to store a hose, or maybe a potted plant. If you want a fence, you end up sharing it with the neighbor you can hear snoring from his bedroom. Which is ten feet from yours.
If you had the means, you can get a reprieve by retreating into a gated golf community. Better amenities, more space and better landscaping. Although, that is starting to change.
The gated golf lifestyle apparently isn't as popular anymore, and course owners are cashing out. Problem is, the buyers are closing down the courses. Residents used to freshly trimmed greens and sharply trimmed hedges are seething from all this.
The Rolling Hills course closed at the end of June when it was sold. The owners want to turn the land into lots for new homes. Nobody knows when or even if that will happen.
The clubhouse is padlocked. The turf is so high and riddled with weeds that it's hard to make out the old greens from the rough. Large fallen oak limbs block what used to be the 18th tee.
Imagine living in a beautiful community like that. Then, one day they stop mowing the grass, the lakes turn to slime and coyotes hunt near your backyard. They already have enough problems with
bears biting women in the ass. Developments were supposed to drive those animals far away from our new lots, not invite them back in.
We are going on eight years of the country closing more courses than it opens. Using golf courses to sell residential developments hasn't worked out so well, when there aren't enough affluent club members to keep the course afloat. Many of these courses will eventually be carved up and filled with closely-packed houses I described above.
Until then, warding off coyotes and bears is a priority for the residents of these abandoned golf wastelands. Many of them have turned to good ol' American self-reliance.
"My wife is pressuring me to buy a riding mower so we can mow our fairway," Pedersen said.
I wouldn't bother. Personally, I think
George Carlin had the perfect idea for upgrading golf courses.