ShareThisNAPLES, Fla. - Every day they fall from the sky -- golf balls adorned with the logos of banks, country clubs and Fortune 500 companies.
Hundreds of dimpled balls -- Titleist, Maxfli, Top Flight and even yellow range balls -- that come from neighboring Stonebridge Country Club every year.
Most land with a soft thud in the well-kept lawn behind William and Dorothy Abbott's house. But some crash through their living room windows, smash garden ornaments, crack the concrete roof tiles, and rip holes through the lanai screens.
Dorothy Abbott was hit once with an errant golf ball. William Abbott, who used to wear a hard hat outside, has had close calls.
"What's coming next? What damage are they going to do?" Dorothy Abbott asked. "We are afraid for our lives, being hit by golf balls, and being an invalid."
For more than 15 years, the Abbotts have battled with Stonebridge, which they said has gone through at least three owners, trying to get reimbursed for the repairs they've had to make. Ultimately, they want to get the first hole redesigned to end the problem once and for all.
They've talked to the club managers and sent dozens of letters through the years. They've talked to lawyers, and they've talked to Collier County sheriff's deputies.
Still the golf balls keep coming.
"I did meet with the general manager at the country club," said Cpl. Ron Turi of the Sheriff's Office's North Naples community policing unit. "Unfortunately, it's a civil situation."
Several attempts to reach Stonebridge General Manager Doug Brown on the phone and via e-mail for comment were unsuccessful.
But according to a Sheriff's Office incident report from last June, Brown told Turi that he didn't have any long-term solutions. He said he'd been working with an architect to change the landscaping, but didn't know if that would eliminate the problem.
An occasional broken window is the price you pay for choosing to live on a golf course. But the Abbotts never made that choice.
In 1979 they first visited Naples on vacation from Massachusetts. In the mid-1980s they purchased land and when they built their retirement home in 1988, they said the area was nothing but "scraggly farm land."
The Abbotts rented the house for about six years while they continued working at the family business up North. What is now the Stonebridge golf course was built in 1993, according to the Collier County Property Appraiser's Office.
William Abbott recalled receiving a letter informing him about the plans for the golf course.
"I said 'Fine, good, I don't care,' without ever thinking this type of thing was going to go on," he said.
However, when the Abbotts eventually retired to Naples in 1994, they quickly realized that things weren't fine and good. Instead, they found their house and yard were being pelted with up to 200 golf balls a month.
The first hole, which is behind the Abbotts' home, is short (310 yards from the green tees) and tight par-4, said Erik Peterson, the golf pro at Stonebridge.
"If they slice it to the right, we get it," Dorothy Abbott said.
Peterson said that on May 1, Stonebridge plans to redesign its course, which may stop balls from hitting homes.
"The first hole, they're actually going to reshape it so the first hole is going more left, it's aiming to the left instead of straight down the middle of the fairway," Peterson said. "Hopefully, with the renovations, it's going to make a big difference."
(Connect with Ryan Mills at www.naplesnews.com/staff/ryan-mills/)
