In case your errant shot hits a home, what’s your accountability?
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Sneaking away from the injury of your errant shot is like driving off from the scene of an accident you precipitated. Each are hit-and-runs.
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Lawrence from San Diego writes: If I hit my patented banana-slice and the shot cracks a window of a neighboring home, am I obliged to depart a notice with my contact info, as I might if I nicked one other automotive whereas parallel parking?
Expensive Lawrence:
The Etiquetteist has a pal who describes himself as a “traditional guilt-ridden Catholic,” which is to say that he winds up feeling terrible about nearly all the things he does. However hitting a home with a golf shot? That’s the place he attracts the road.
His reasoning, as you may anticipate, goes one thing like this: in the event you buy a home on a golf course, purchaser beware. It’s best to anticipate to take some shrapnel and have owners’ insurance coverage in opposition to any golf-ball injury.
Holding anybody else financially accountable can be ridiculous, like overlaying your hand in honey, sticking it in a bear’s den after which suing since you acquired scratched.
And so it’s that this guilt-ridden pal, the identical painstakingly upright one who feels compelled to utter 45 ‘Hail Marys’ when he inadvertently cuts somebody off in site visitors, feels zero regret when he hits a home with an errant shot. He simply retains on shifting, unrepentant. He asks no forgiveness. And he leaves no notice.
His place, on the face of it, is comprehensible. But it surely doesn’t maintain as much as nearer scrutiny.
For starters, there’s the legislation. Whereas it’s true that many house owner have insurance policies that guard in opposition to golf-ball injury — many programs have such protection, too — it’s additionally true that most often, golfers are legally liable for any property injury or harm they trigger. At many programs, this legal responsibility is spelled out within the small print on the scorecard.
Granted, legislation and etiquette should not the identical. However on this occasion, the Etiquetteist would argue that the obligations are. Your reference to a parking mishap is apt as a result of there are, nicely, parallels to what occurs on the highway. From an moral standpoint, sneaking away after breaking a window together with your banana ball isn’t any totally different than denting somebody’s automotive after which driving off with out leaving your contact information. Each are hit-and-runs. Positive, the proprietor of the opposite car assumed a danger when he left it on the road (there may be at all times the possibility of an accident; that’s why they’re known as accidents), simply because the proprietor of the course-side dwelling assumed a danger when he purchased his residence. However none of that absolves you of your private accountability. To cite the nice thinker George Constanza: “We live in a society.” It’s on you to come clean with your actions. Failure to take action, even in ways in which could appear vanishingly small, frays the social cloth, leaving us with nothing greater than the shredded remnants often called anarchy.
The Etiquetteist is being overly dramatic. However you get the gist: If you happen to injury a home, it is best to go away a notice.
What may occur subsequent is one other matter. Hopefully, as typically occurs with minor fender-benders, cooler heads may prevail. The house owner may thanks in your honesty and inform you to not fear, his insurance coverage will deal with it. Or he may ask that you simply cut up the price of the deductible. Or he may insist that you simply pay for all of it.
That final state of affairs can be a bummer. But it surely additionally shouldn’t alter your habits. The scenario is akin to lining up a drive in an try to seek out the green, solely to hit a giant slice as a substitute. You may not like the end result, however no less than you’ve tried to do the proper factor.
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