CHENEY, Wash. – The Plains Golf Course is still picking up pieces of broken glass off their front sidewalk from a weekend robbery that left them with $20,000 in losses.
The thieves smashed the front door window with a rock and stole golf clubs. The incident took place over Friday night into Saturday morning – the course did not catch the crime on any security footage.
The Plains reported the smash and grab to the Spokane County Sheriff’s Office, according to General Manager Dakota White.
“It feels like an unnecessary violation,” golfing regular Patrick Lowney said. “You shouldn’t get away with something like this.”
The financial blow is a tough one to stomach; margins on clubs – including drivers that cost hundreds of dollars – are thin, according to White. But the cash they lost in the robbery is a small test compared to the green they’ve lost over the past few years.
“This is the second full season with nine holes,” Lowney said.
The landowner sold off the front 9 years ago for developers to build housing. But what should have been a death sentence for the small privately-owned course, simply wasn’t.
The course sold more tee times with nine holes, than they did the previous year with a full 18.
“I talk to people all the time. You know they’re coming from the farmlands and deep in the Cheney, and you know that this is their course,” Lowney said. “It’s a lot of down-to-earth people around here.”
While some people see a golf course as a symbol of elitism, The Plains prides itself as a track for the common man; a chance for teens in jeans to learn valuable life lessons through the game’s unwritten rules.
“It’s a beautiful thing. Golf and life go hand in hand,” White said. “[The criminals] need to fix some more divots.”
