AKRON, Ohio — Mud Run is a popular golf course in Akron that caters to beginners an pros, but Friday, someone took the term "driving range" literally.
An unknown vandal drove through the sixth-hole green, causing ruts to the tune of 10s of thousands of dollars in damage. Most notably, a vehicle had done "donuts" on the surface.
"My jaw dropped," Raygan Hoover, a junior on the St. Vincent-St. Mary girls golf team, said.
Police say Friday night around 8 p.m., someone drove a four-wheeler through the course's surrounding fence, when no one was around. Ruts and dirt now litter the green, making the hole unplayable.
"I spend more time here than I do home," Mud Run general manager Dirk Hartman told 3News. "I see it now, and it's like somebody doing this to my front yard. It's heartbreaking.
"Those people are ignorant to the fact that it's not just a golf hole; it impacts the community, the kids."
Indeed, Mud Run hosts thousands of kids a year. Raygan and the rest of her St. V teammates had a tournament on Monday.
"When you walked past it, you saw all the damage, and it was kind of unsettling," Raygan said. "Seeing it actually torn up is really sad, because what do they get out of it?"
"All the kids are like, 'This is sick,'" Hartman added. "It's disgusting what someone took it upon themselves to do."
Officials at the popular par-34 course say they've had minor damage from vandals before, but nothing like this.
"You can't play on this hole," Hartman said of No. 6. "You can't putt, you can't do anything. It's destroyed."
The hunt is on for possible perpetrators, and witnesses reported seeing a young female on an ATV was seen in the area, but that's all we know so far. Mud Run is a city-owned course, so Akron will come out and repair the fence, but the green likely won't be good to go until at least next spring. Workers will also be putting up trail cameras to monitor the area in case something like this happens again.