Nedlands Golf Club the latest course damaged by e-scooter vandals as concerns rise over anti-social behaviour

Another golf course in Perth has endured vandalism by a group on e-scooters, just weeks after a $150,000 upgrade to its greens. Within its first week of reopening, the Nedlands Golf Club was forced to reach deeper into its pockets to repair a newly revamped green left badly damaged by e-scooter tracks. Club president Damon Watkins said the incident in March forced the club to close part of the course during its Junior Masters tournament. “We probably get two or three cases a year, and a lot of the time there’s not too much damage done,” Mr Watkins said. “But when you’re a small club and you have a lot of volunteers who work hard to keep the place nice, it just gets a bit frustrating.” Nedlands is a public golf course under the direction of the City of Nedlands and because of its A-class status is easily accessible. “The park is listed A-class reserve, so that means the whole community is entitled to use it. There’s no boundary or fencing around it, so I don’t think it’s an easy thing for the police to deal with,” Mr Watkins said. “The council have been working with us to possibly install some lighting at the more vulnerable corners of the course, and maybe get some CCTV as well.” Mr Watkins said as well as reporting the incident to the council, letters were written to nearby residents in the hope the community could stay alert for future troublemakers. It comes after PerthNow last week reported that Point Walter Golf Course, located just across the river from the Nedlands course, was left with thousands of dollars in damages caused by e-scooter vandalism. Venue manager Tim Wood said the culprits — who he described as a group of about 10 teenagers each about 14 years old — had been chased off the course by staff more than a dozen times in the past month. They have watched the teens on their e-scooters repeatedly do “burn-outs” on the public golf course and carve long dents into the putting greens, affecting play. Last month, a 17-year-old and nine others were charged with anti-social behaviour after police disrupted plans for an organised electric scooter ride-out in North Beach.