Golf for the Masses Through Eminent Domain

I said long ago following the Kelo decision that government authorities would now feel empowered to use eminent domain for all kinds of objectionable purposes, and more and more cases are popping up every day. There's a case in New York that's a real threat to every private club in the country. The mayor of a local community wants to seize a private golf club - not for roads or school - but to open the course to the public:

John Wilson, a 20-year member of Long Island's 175-acre Deepdale Golf Club, established in 1955, is mad as hell that the nearby exclusive village of North Hills, N.Y., wants to seize the venerable club through eminent domain -– not for a road or a public hospital, but to use as its own community golf course.

Wilson is just one of many Americans who have discovered that the traditional concept of eminent domain -– which allows government to appropriate property for public use -– has been turned upside down by recent court rulings and greedy government officials.

"That is absurd: to steal somebody else's golf course, to give it to somebody else as a golf course so that their home values increase," Wilson recently told Fox News.

Furthermore, the angry citizen points out, the town of North Hempstead, of which North Hills is a part, already has eight municipal golf courses.

"You would think that the residents of North Hills have enough places to play golf. Not to mention that a number of them belong to their own clubs," Wilson says.

Let me tell you what's going to happen if this action succeeds. A spectacular private course, which is a favorite of many golfers, will be turned into another run down public course because the green fees they'll be able to charge will never cover the costs of maintaining it at its current high level. And the members who have been paying significant amounts of money to maintain this course will lose their investment.

And where will this stop? What if the local government in Augusta, GA decides that Augusta National, the home of the Masters, should become a public course. I would fully expect some lib who's unhappy with the club's membership policies would try something like that.

Private property ownership, one of the foundations of freedom, is becoming meaningless.

UPDATE: Here's another more in-depth report on the Deepdale case.