Golfers step up after 200 balls vanish from P.E.I. driving range

Over 200 golf balls were stolen from the St. Felix Golf Club in Tignish sometime Sunday night and now golfers are helping to replace them.

The golf club posted about the incident on their Facebook page telling people to be on the lookout for the balls being sold. The post also suggested the balls could have been taken by accident and the club would love to have them back.

"It's just driving range balls," said Paul Martin, owner of St. Felix Golf Club.

He said this is the first time a bulk of balls has been heisted from the greens. Martin said it seems like the balls just disappeared.

"Me and my son on Monday morning went to pick them up and there was none there," he said, adding that he usually leaves the driving range balls in the field and picks them up the following morning.

No resale value

Martin said the balls are usually close to the road and he doesn't know why anyone would want to go and pick up driving range golf balls.

"We found a dozen, maybe 10 or 12. The rest were gone," Martin said.

Martin said the driving range balls are worth pretty much nothing.

"They are not resellable … some of them are dirty or scratched. That's why we have driving range balls," he said.

"To them it wouldn't be worth five cents a ball, you know, because they are all different colours."

Community steps up

Now Martin has to replace the balls, but those who go to St. Felix Golf Club are helping out by bringing in old balls from home.

"A lot of people collect balls," Martin said. "They were very generous, they brought us a five-gallon bucket."

With that donation half of the 200 or so missing balls have already been replaced.

"They are just trying to help us out which is nice, very nice," he said.

Martin has owned the golf club for five years and said he never ran into a problem like this before.

But, he said, he is going to make sure it doesn't happen again by picking up balls in the evening and not leaving them in the driving range.

More P.E.I. news