Funniest things stolen from a golf course Cancel The title field is required!

1. Jeffrey Sexton

   

   0 posts
   
   8/31/2016 5:08 PM

   I came in this past Tuesday to find that someone had stolen one of my lake fountains. They took the fountain with float and the power cord. Cost my club $6,800. I would have liked to see them doing this in the dark.

   
   
   
   
2. Steven Huffstutler

   

   11 posts
   
   8/31/2016 7:08 PM

   Banjo fittings off of a fertigation tank

   
   
   
   
3. Gary Carls

   

   19 posts
   
   8/31/2016 8:08 PM

   No way to really prove it but way back when I first started in the business we had a regular player who always played late in the afternoon that owned a small nearby 9 hole course. We suddenly started losing sand trap rakes a few at a time and he suddenly started having rakes in his bunkers at his facility. HMMMMMMMM.

   
   Gary K. Carls, CGCS, President - Oakland Turfgrass Education Initiative
   
   
4. Peter Bowman

   

   11 posts
   
   8/31/2016 9:08 PM

   Walkie talkies, but they forgot to take the charger bases.

   
   
   
   
5. Larry Allan

   

   0 posts
   
   9/1/2016 4:09 AM

   A five string left handed banjo with a Scruggs tuner

   
   
   
   
6. Peter Bowman

   

   11 posts
   
   9/1/2016 5:09 AM

   Probably a whole lot of stuff that I don't even know about.

   
   
   
   
7. Sean Hoolehan

   

   0 posts
   
   9/1/2016 10:09 AM

   We bought nice custom iron logo tee markers, cost > $40 each. They became a souvenir, we lost them on the 18th tee, 1 or 2 a week. Started 4 sets of 40. After a year I had 3 sets of 36, then down to 2 sets and only used for tournaments.
   
   Not at the golf course, but if my Landscape employees leave anything behind at the RV Park it is usually gone. They may stop work for a bathroom break or lunch, If they don't pack everything up in their cart it's 50%-50% on being there when they return. Lost a few weedeaters and blowers that way. We have a bunch of dog waste disposal stations, people take the whole roll of bags if they can get them. We had to modify the containers to make it harder to do, but they still try.

   
   
   
   
8. Melvin Waldron

   

   43 posts
   
   9/1/2016 12:09 PM

   My soul?
   
   Mel

   
   Melvin H. Waldron III, CGCS, Horton Smith Golf Course, City of Springfield/Greene County MO
   
   
9. Stephen Johnson

   

   0 posts
   
   9/2/2016 12:09 AM

   Set of digital scales from my chemical room????
   Must have needed them for their side work!

   
   
   
   
10. Peter Bowman

    

    11 posts
    
    9/2/2016 6:09 AM

    My shop got broken into one night. They unscrewed part of a sheet of metal siding and pulled apart to get in. No motion detectors, so no alarm sounded.
    
    Stolen were a couple bags of bentgrass seed, several bags of a Scott's (it was a long time ago) greens-grade fertilizer, and maybe a few other things. Thinking to myself,"what are they going to do with that? Try to sell to a local golf course? Maybe sell it at a garage sale? Build a 50,000 SF putting green in his back yard, which is probably a trailer park?" Also missing was about 80 gallons of gas from the above ground tank on stilts.
    
    Later that week I got my weekly printed alarm report in the mail (did I mention it was a long time ago?) from the security company. The report always showed the time of day the alarm was set or turned off, and the code that was used. Turns out the night of the break in my mechanic's code was used at about 1:15 AM to get in. Must have torn the metal siding to make it look like a break in. Dummy didn't know I got a report in the mail and that we all had different codes. He calls in sick the next morning, says he was in the hospital all night with stomach pains. He takes a couple days off, probably wondering what to do with all the bentgrass seed, then finally comes back to work. I approach him with the alarm report showing his code was used that night. Stunned to find that out he tells me it was probably his wife. "My wife's a *#@/!. We're fighting right now and probably gonna get divorced. I always leave my work keys on the nightstand. She probably took them and drove up here and......."
    
    You're fired. Not for stealing stuff or breaking in, or for having four or five of your buddies drive up in their cars so you could fill their tanks, but because you're stupid enough to think I would believe your wife would do such a thing.

    
    
    
    
11. Steven Huffstutler

    

    11 posts
    
    9/2/2016 7:09 AM

    His wife probably was a *#@/!.

    
    
    
    
12. Larry Allan

    

    0 posts
    
    9/2/2016 9:09 AM

    I had an ex GM who had a series of unexplained break ins at the clubhouse where all the liquor was taken. He went off on Holidays for a couple of weeks and needed me to open the club while he was away. He gave me a key and what he said was his alarm code.
    A couple of nights after he returned I got a call at home around midnight but no one responded at the other end, even though I could clearly hear voices. 20 minutes later the phone rang again and this time it was my GM stating that the club had been broken into again and all the booze was gone....and that my code had been used to gain access. I said Erwin, you told me the code was yours. Oh no he says, that was the code I made for you. The police are here and we called you twenty minutes ago and there was no answer. Where were you?. He knew full well I lived half an hour away and faked the cops by saying no one had answered the original call.
    This was not good for my continued employment but I gave my side of the story and we waited for the next phone bill to come in. When it did it showed that I had answered the original call and was at home at the time of the "break in" Thank God , It was a long distance call or it would never have shown.
    He was my first GM. I've now outlasted 5 others and believe it or not one was even worse than that. Another one that I actually liked left our club for a better job. He was arrested last year for 800K theft, forgery etc etc etc.
    Seems he was building a house, altering the invoices to the clubs name submitting them and sending the cheque with the original invoice to the vendor. Note to the corrupt. Always make sure the address is correct so that the mail isn't returned and opened by the clubs secretary.

    
    
    
    
13. Steven Huffstutler

    

    11 posts
    
    9/2/2016 9:09 AM

    Thats way better than a Banjo fitting

    
    
    
    
14. Steven Huffstutler

    

    11 posts
    
    9/2/2016 9:09 AM

    I worked at a resort course up north for awhile before moving to Florida after I retired from the service and someone used to steal the ball washer soap tablets pretty regularly. The culprit turned out to be one of the landscape crew members. When confronted, her reply was that she didn't make enough money to afford soap. Apparently, she was bathing with the stuff.

    
    
    
    
15. Melvin Waldron

    

    43 posts
    
    9/2/2016 10:09 AM

    Larry Allan said: A five string left handed banjo with a Scruggs tuner

    
    
    There has to be an interesting story behind that one?
    
    We had a ball washer disappear off of our # 10 tee, at the university course I was at, in August. It showed back up in May.
    
    Also while there we had just put out some new logo flags with the university and athletic logos on them. All of a sudden during the middle of the day we were missing a couple of flags. Told our pro shop counter person, when one of the students finished his round, (about the only person playing at the time) she asked him if he had seen anyone out there stealing flags, he confessed right then and there.
    
    One other night we had a soccer goal moved up into a bunker and another to the edge of our property, all flags were missing. Found a couple in the second soccer goal, about 8 in out topdressing pile, but was still missing a few, noticed in a little gazebo, (about big enough for a foursome), had it's screening torn, I walked into it, looked up and there were the rest of the flag poles in the rafters.
    
    Mel

    
    Melvin H. Waldron III, CGCS, Horton Smith Golf Course, City of Springfield/Greene County MO
    
    
16. Larry Allan

    

    0 posts
    
    9/2/2016 1:09 PM

    Mel, I have a feeling the guy just wanted the Scruggs tuner but didn't have the time to remove it. Left handed banjo players are as rare as sane superintendents

    
    
    
    
17. David Soltvedt

    

    0 posts
    
    9/2/2016 1:09 PM

    in 2004...Had a old employee come back for a visit a few months after he left. I asked him what he was doing lately....he said buffing tile floors. I thought...so that's where our floor buffer went.

    
    
    
    
18. Peter Bowman

    

    11 posts
    
    9/2/2016 6:09 PM

    Wasn't my course, but a golf course north of Sacramento had a three wheel Cushman stolen out of his yard one night. Sheriffs found it a couple days later, out of gas, about 40 miles from the course. Must have walked from that point on.

    
    
    
    
19. Melvin Waldron

    

    43 posts
    
    9/3/2016 10:09 AM

    Peter Bowman, CGCS said: Wasn't my course, but a golf course north of Sacramento had a three wheel Cushman stolen out of his yard one night. Sheriffs found it a couple days later, out of gas, about 40 miles from the course. Must have walked from that point on.

    
    
    I'm surprised somebody knew how to drive a stick? I wonder what the MPG's on that was?
    
    Mel

    
    Melvin H. Waldron III, CGCS, Horton Smith Golf Course, City of Springfield/Greene County MO
    
    
20. Peter Bowman

    

    11 posts
    
    9/3/2016 12:09 PM

    Melvin Waldron, CGCS said:

    Peter Bowman, CGCS said: Wasn't my course, but a golf course north of Sacramento had a three wheel Cushman stolen out of his yard one night. Sheriffs found it a couple days later, out of gas, about 40 miles from the course. Must have walked from that point on.

    
    
    I'm surprised somebody knew how to drive a stick? I wonder what the MPG's on that was?
    
    Mel

    
    
    He probably also stole a full 5-gallon can of gas.

    
    
    
    
21. Andy Jorgensen

    

    1 posts
    
    9/4/2016 8:09 PM

    Sand pro tires....one at a time til 4 were gone, then it stopped.
    
    Lots of rolls of toilet paper and paper towels...
    
    Small PVC fittings. Always figured one of the staff was putting in a system.
    
    Battery out of a cart, mere minutes after the mechanic put a new one in because it wouldn't start. Pretty easy to figure out it was the employee trying to use that cart and after we found it in his truck.
    
    Sod and plants. Happens more than we'd like.
    
    Topdressing sand...for his kids sand box. I would have just given it had he asked. Shouldn't have invited me to his kids bday party.

    
    
    
    
22. Sean Hoolehan

    

    0 posts
    
    9/7/2016 9:09 AM

    I forgot about this one. About 17 years ago we had a shop gate that was simply a cable between 2 rail road ties buried a couple of feet in the ground. It was there to stop people from driving through the yard when we were not working. One morning we came in and it was gone, no sign of the rail road ties, cable or lock. Just holes where the ties had been. Our security investigated and a couple of days later returned our cable, lock and 2 railroad ties that were now just 4 inch's thick and smooth on one side. Turns out a guest got disoriented backed into our cable hooked it on his bumper and was pulled over by state police after driving 20 miles dragging 2 railroad ties behind him. The guest was not drunk but was in his late 80's. I am pretty sure that was his last time driving.

    
    
    
    
23. Brent Venenga

    

    0 posts
    
    9/14/2016 4:09 PM

    When I was an Assistant the Superintendent always had a few guys mowing rough in the evenings. I started noticing the 5 gallon gas cans were always empty even when I knew they were filled before I left that day. The Superintendent noticed also and we were suspicious of one evening mower. I didn't know it but Superintendent filled all our 5 gallon gas cans up with water before he left one day. And the evening mower guy called next day said he couldn't make it he was having car problems. After that call we never saw the guy again after the repair shop told him he had a gas tank full of water.

    
    
    
    
24. Peter Bowman

    

    11 posts
    
    9/14/2016 4:09 PM

    Brent Venenga said: When I was an Assistant the Superintendent always had a few guys mowing rough in the evenings. I started noticing the 5 gallon gas cans were always empty even when I knew they were filled before I left that day. The Superintendent noticed also and we were suspicious of one evening mower. I didn't know it but Superintendent filled all our 5 gallon gas cans up with water before he left one day. And the evening mower guy called next day said he couldn't make it he was having car problems. After that call we never saw the guy again after the repair shop told him he had a gas tank full of water.

    
    
    Nowadays he'd probably sue you for that.....and win.

    
    
    
    
25. Steven Huffstutler

    

    11 posts
    
    9/15/2016 5:09 AM

    It doesn't have anything to do with golf courses, but when I was a young man in the service, I shared a dock shack with 4 other shipmates. There was a refrigerator in there that we kept food and beer in. Everybody had their own brand of beer and one guys beer kept disappearing. He took one bottle and carefully removed the cap, poured out a bit of beer, poured in about 2 oz of Ipecac syrup and recapped the bottle. It didn't take long to identify the culprit. I didn't even know you could turn that color of green.
    
    Regards,
    
    Steve

    
    
    
    
26. Charles Lafferty

    

    0 posts
    
    9/15/2016 8:09 AM

    about 6 pallets of laid sod

    
    
    
    
27. Michael Sullivan

    

    5 posts
    
    10/3/2016 8:10 AM

    Friend at an area private course was having the ball washers stolen from his holes that were alone a road. He then found out, shortly there after that they were seen on a municipal golf course a town away. With their tee towels still on them!
    As the friend said, if he called an asked, he probaly would have given him enough parts to put a few together.

    
    
    
    
28. Richard Lavine

    

    3 posts
    
    11/20/2016 7:11 PM

    Just saw this thread...
    One morning, the gal in the restaurant called me to tell me that her safe was missing! This safe was about a 30" cube, on wheels, VERY heavy. It was used to start the daily bank in the coffee shop each morning, probably $75 or so.
    So they rolled the safe out the coffee shop unto the asphalt path. We could easily follow the tracks through the carpet and across the asphalt where it left a small track over the old asphalt. They went up a concrete ramp across the asphalt parking lot into the condo complex next to the course. The tracks (which they probably did not notice in the darkness) led right into a condo garage.
    The cops were called and located the safe and arrested the grown son of the condo owner. They had worked pretty hard to sawzall the hinges off and then the dial and handle; all to no avail. The replacement safe cost WAY more than the contents that we recovered.

    
    
    
    
29. Peter Bowman

    

    11 posts
    
    11/20/2016 8:11 PM

    Hey Rich, you could have just stopped at a safe on wheels. That, in itself, is pretty funny.

    
    
    
    
30. Barry Gardner

    

    0 posts
    
    11/22/2016 3:11 PM

    Melvin Waldron, CGCS said: My soul?
    
    Mel