In a bizarre and misguided attempt to pay tribute to dead golfers everywhere, 57-year-old Douglas Jones went to the Joshua Tree National Park and threw upwards of 3,000 golf balls into the “giant sand trap.”
Starting in 2007, park rangers “began discovering large quantities of golf balls in some turnout areas of the park,” said park spokesman Joe Zarki. “We were wondering what was going on here. There were also some tennis balls involved.”
In addition to the golf (and tennis) balls, random cans of fruit and vegetables would be scattered throughout the park with park literature surrounding them.
Finally, this summer rangers caught up to Jones, who admitted to the charges.
“He said he did it because he wanted to honor all the golfers who had died,” Zarki said. “He left the cans of fruit and vegetables supposedly for the assistance of stranded hikers. He wanted to leave his mark.”
While rangers had initially thought someone was hitting the balls into the park, it turns out that Jones was just throwing them from his car.
Contrary to what rangers originally thought, Jones wasn’t chipping golf balls into the desert with a club. He was hurling them from his car.
Jones lives with his 84-year-old father, also Douglas, who had no idea about his sons activities until reporters called him.
“It certainly sounds strange,” his father said. “He hikes out in Joshua Tree every three months or so and he golfs maybe once a week. But I don’t know where he would get that many golf balls.”
Considering that the younger Jones works at a golf course, I have a hunch on how he might have acquired so many balls…
[LA Times]
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