Sledding

Snow is coming and I'm sure kids will be looking for a places to sled.  Unfortunately, our course doesn't have many good hills to offer.  In the past, when there has been adequate snow depth, the hill behind 7 green was popular.  "Popular" used to mean 5 or 6 kids 15 years ago.  I was one of those "kids".   Now it means 50+.  In recent years we've tried to "manage" the sledding knowing that it was bound to happen anyway.  However, no good deed goes unpunished and we suffered some unintended consequences from this strategy.  In no particular order here are a few of the issues we've faced now that the crowd has grown so big....

• People started sledding before we gave the "green light" and despite signage saying "no sledding until grass is covered".  People continued sledding after we gave the "red light" and placed signage that said "no sledding" once the snow had been worn down to the turf.  
• Bunker rakes and flagsticks have been taken or broken.
• The stacked stone walls behind 7 green get damaged in every sled worthy snow.  Some of this is accidental as they are hidden in the snow.  Some of it is intentional as they've been moved to build jumps in the hill.  
• In some events the snow packs tighter and tighter on the green as sledding occurs.  This turns it into thick ice which takes a few weeks longer to thaw than the unpacked snow.  Packed ice on the green can be harmful to the turf.  If there was no putting green on this hill, sledding would not be such an issue.  
• Cars parked on Fawn Lake Parkway are in a dangerous curve that block snow plows.  We pulled one car out of a neighbors yard two years ago.  We also had neighbors call to complain that they couldn't get out of their driveway due to the cars and carts parked in the way.  Not everyone comes on foot or this wouldn't be an issue.  We asked for no cars, but that didn't work.  

To summarize, a few kids and families sledding in deep snow was never a problem.  A big crowd of unsupervised kids and/or parents who don't respect our efforts to protect the green on hole 7 or our neighbors is a problem.  Please understand we would rather not have to ask for sledding to be done elsewhere, and we wish that our effort to manage it the past few years had worked better.