The unfortunate trend of idiots destroying golf courses for no other reason than to ruin someone else’s day shows no sign of abating. The latest victim is Thorndon Park Golf Club in Essex, which was hit by a pair of vandals on quad bikes/ATVs late on Sunday evening. Usually, we only see the aftermath of these sorts of crimes (yes, they are in fact crimes), but in this case the perpetrators were caught on video as they turned the 18-hole Harry Colt design into their own personal motocross track. Watch it and weep.
Happened yesterday at Thorndon park golf club in Brentwood pic.twitter.com/ord0e8hPUd
— London & UK Street News (@CrimeLdn) January 20, 2025
Well, this is very much out there now so let’s talk facts. Two quad bikes got onto the course Sunday afternoon and decided to do there best to destroy 6 of our greens and a number of tees. Devastated doesn’t even cover it. Like all things, this can be repaired, and we will have… pic.twitter.com/Wx8vWAQ4bv
— Thorndon Park GC Greenkeepers (@GcThorndon) January 21, 2025
Ashley Mullin, a local golfer who runs the Instagram account The Golf Supply, took to social media to explain the situation, saying the pair of hooligans found their way onto the course through a gap in the property’s perimeter. They then spent 25 minutes joyriding across the course, completely destroying seven greens and “65 percent” of the course’s fairways. The current damage estimate is £50,000 to £100,000, but could rise with further inspections.
“The initial thoughts were a little bit of anger and then just astonishment that someone can cause that much damage,” general manager Iain Evans told the BBC. “Just mindless damage to what is effectively a natural environment is just awful… There has been vandalism on the golf course before with motorbikes but certainly not to this extent.”
Currently the course is open, but holes three to seven, plus 16, are closed due to significant damage to the greens. Essex Police have petitioned locals for more information about the crime while Mullin is seeking to raise £10,000 in donations to help the course’s recovery efforts.
