DRIVING AT THE TRUTH; STUDY TRACKS GOLF BALL THREAT TO NEIGHBORS.

Byline: Kevin F. Sherry Daily News Staff Writer

With each thwack of a golf ball, John McNair paused and looked to the sky to watch where the shot landed.

McNair and an associate spent six of their weekend hours monitoring where the balls landed after leaving the tees at the Lake Lindero Country Club's driving range.

McNair, director of golf management for Environmental Golf in Calabasas, staked out a spot at the range Saturday and Sunday to provide an unbiased, outside view of the golf balls for Agoura Hills city officials.

In the three years the driving range has been open, course officials have made numerous modifications in lighting, netting and sound to placate their residential neighbors.

McNair's study aims to find whether balls can rocket over the 100-foot netting and into people's yards.

``Is it dangerous or not is the bottom line,'' he said. ``We're tracking that, where the highest one is to where it leaves.''

To prepare for his odd job, McNair divided the range into a series of eight grids and monitored where the balls landed from his position at the tees.

``We want to see which is the most vulnerable spot,'' he said.

Every half-hour, McNair counted the number of golfers. His report is due to the city in January.

The golf course established an account of $3,000 with the city, which Environmental Golf will draw from, said Dave Anderson, the city's planning director. The company will be paid depending on how much time is spent compiling the survey.

The white, dimpled golf balls have caused a good deal of controversy between the course and its neighbors.

For several months now, netting poles standing 100 feet tall have kept balls out of the back yard of Cape Horn Drive resident Jack Walerius, one of the more outspoken opponents of the driving range.

But for 2-1/2 years, Walerius and his wife, Carol, said they could not use their back yard out of fear of bombardment. Walerius has a bucket filled with his collection of 300 ``souvenir'' golf balls that made their way from the range onto his patio, his roof, his driveway and his car.

``The project is too intense for the area,'' he said. ``The project should never have gone in here.''

A preliminary look at the range seemed to confirm that the newer 100-foot nets are working, McNair said. As of Sunday afternoon, no balls had left the range for neighbors' yards, and the highest ball had reached about 80 feet on the netting.

Still, a friend who lives on Logwood Road on the west side of the range recently had a window broken, Walerius said.

The Lake Lindero club has made numerous changes to try and adapt to a more harmonious stance with its neighbors, Anderson said. The range has lowered lights to ground level, added taller netting, padded metal poles to reduce pinging noises and erected helpful, if unsightly, dark fabric to block lights from neighbors, he said.

Walerius appreciates the concessions but said that the low lights still glare into his home, the taller netting does not protect everyone, the padding on the poles covers only the lower segments and the dark fabric looks like trash bags.

For his part, McNair's study was limited solely to the issue of golf balls leaving the course.

If a home was hit since the 100-foot nets went up, a golfer must have taken aim at them on purpose, he said. The angles of the tees and the height of the netting netting makes it almost impossible for even a powerful duffer to launch a ball into a yard by accident, he said.

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2 Photos

PHOTO (1--Color in Conejo Edition only) Jack Walerius shows off some of the 300 golf balls that landed in his yard before the 100-foot nets went up.

(2--Color) (Ran in Conejo Edition only) Bright lights at the Lake Lindero Country Club's driving range have angered neighbors, forcing the club to move them to ground level. Some residents of the Agoura Hills community complain that's not enough.

Joe Binoya/Special to the Daily News