ZAIDA GLIBANOVIC
GOLF
By ZAIDA GLIBANOVIC MORWELL Golf Club was left devastated after their cart sheds were broken into for the second time in the last month, the vandals leaving behind a $20,000 trail of damage. Club president Eric Harrison, said he was disgusted to find the carts damaged on the morning of Sunday, November 26. It is believed this is the second break-in in a matter of weeks for the club. “Two weeks ago, on the 11th, I believe the same group broke into our members’ cart shed and took our members’ carts out for joyrides,” Harrison said. “They damaged both cart shed doors and took several of the carts out for joyrides, damaged the front ends and crashed them through fences.” In the surveillance video, Harrison said there were several vandals captured on cameras. In the most recent break-in, the vandals have gone further and spray-painted the shed. “They’ve gone into where we keep our hire carts and do the same thing, only this time they’ve gone further and used graffiti. The members are pretty disappointed,” he said. Morwell Police are in the early stages of investigating the break-in. “We’ve given (the Police) all the information we possibly could have,” Harrison said. Since the first break-in, the golf club has installed two new cameras, but that did little to deter the group of offenders from coming back. “They were there at 1.59am on Sunday morning and still there at 3.30am (Sunday, 26) around the clubhouse and went for joyrides for a couple of hours with the carts,” he said. Waiting on the Police investigation, the team at Morwell Golf Club said they will need to increase security to feel safe again. “We need to instil trust back in our members,” Harrison said. The golf club is considering installing more cameras, barriers and bollards to prevent opportunistic vandals from taking advantage of the course. “We’ve had a couple of windows broken a long time ago, but nothing like this before,” Harrison said. In his long tenure at the golf club, Harrison said he has never seen such a brazen act. Concerned about the current crime rates in Morwell, he believes more can be done to prevent this type of crime. “When these guys come around, it’s just blatant damage that they cause for no reason. I can’t see why they would need to break into a golf cart shed and cause as much havoc as they can,” he said. “I’m sure there are different things around the Valley that they can get involved with, not causing havoc everywhere and causing stress to everybody.” With insurance premiums set to rise because of these latest break-ins, Harrison regretfully said that hire cart prices will have to account for the costs. “We’ve got to go through our insurance company, but that again comes back down to our members who have to fork out again to keep everything insured,” he said. Harrison had some choice words to describe the inconsiderate actions of the vandals. “As the president of the golf club, it leaves me pretty annoyed and disgusted that people would think they could go in and ruin somebody else’s belongings,” he exclaimed. “We leave them there in good faith, and these idiots come down and ruin our enjoyment in a sport that we all love. “It’s a community; everyone is on tenterhooks about what they will do next.” Local concerns have mounted after street signage along Crinigan Road in Morwell and its surroundings have also been heavily vandalised in the last few weeks – leaving many to wonder if the same people who broke into the Morwell Golf Club are the ones who have been damaging public property. Obscenities and gang signs in red spray paint cover the streets as Morwell Police continue to try and find the group of people responsible. “We’re in the local area of the Falcons Soccer Club, Fortuna Soccer Club … I just hope that they (the vandals) leave them alone,” Harrison said. “As a community that everybody seems to want to knock all the time, we don’t like this sort of stuff. We can be a very good community around the place. There’s new land coming up for sale in this local area, and we want people to come here; we don’t want to scare them away.” Morwell local Nikki Te Paa, has been a part of the club for the past 26 years. Now in her 70’s, Te Paa loves her Morwell Golf Club community, but was left shattered when she discovered her golf cart suffered the most extensive amount of damage in the vandalism incident. “I was devastated. I left my key in it because I thought it was secure, but they used the key, and they used my cart as a battering ram to break down the roller door,” she said. “One wheel was facing right, and one wheel was facing left.” Still in shock and feeling unsafe, Te Paa said there were some disappointed faces at the club. “We’re feeling anger and frustration, because I think it will happen again because there seems to be no consequences for these actions.” An alleged arrest has been made in relation to graffiti on Crinigan Road, which may have some connection to the Golf Club’s break-in.
