Golf and the Law: More than Errant Golf Balls
![handle is hein.journals/otago9 and id is 379 raw text is: GOLF AND THE LAW:
MORE THAN ERRANT GOLF BALLS
Craig Brown*
Introduction
Casual observation suggests that many lawyers play golf. It is not surprising
that this should be so considering how the game and the law are uniquely linked.
So much about the game has a legal angle it is as if golf and the law were made
for each other. On every fairway, in every stretch of rough, in every clubhouse,
in every golf bag, at every swing at the ball, in every set of plans for a new
course, in every application for club membership, there lurks a potential lawsuit.
The evidence is in the law reports, not only of New Zealand, but also of Britain,
Australia, Canada and the United States. In 1968 G.M. Kelly wrote in the New
Zealand Law Journal:1
Among the armchair strategists of sociology, at least, relative affluence and
relatively ample leisure are taken to characterise the modern age. In all advanced
countries, wider opportunities for the enjoyment of sport have been welcomed by
the citizen. Golf has abundantly shared or suffered the surge of interest. With
growth and popularisation, the courts have been increasingly occupied, and
sometimes enlivened, by legal hazards attendant on the game.
He was writing on the subject of injuries and damage caused by errant golf
balls. He detailed the principles of negligence, nuisance and occupiers' liability
at play in those cases and concluded that:
Numerous legal hazards and uncertainties are thus incident upon the errant golf
ball. It is greatly to be hoped that an agony column of case histories will not serve
to intimidate the sporting public. For the lawyer, as for others, golf may be a highly
prized relaxation; he would not wish to dampen its enjoyment by an over-legalistic
approach.
One might think that the prospect (whether feared or welcomed) of increased
golf-related litigation would be mitigated by the entry into force of the Accident
Compensation Act in 1974. After all, as Kelly's article suggested, the principal
cause for the meeting of golf and the law was the meeting of a golf ball and skull
or other human bodily part. And the Accident Compensation scheme removed
such calamities from the reach of the courts.
But much of the case law has nothing to do with personal injury. As more
than one armchair strategist of philosophy has observed, golf is a lot like life.
LLB (Hons) (Otago), LLM (Illinois), LLD (Otago), Professor of Law, University of
Western Ontario, Canada.
Kelly, The Errant Golf Ball: A Legal Hazard [1968] NZLJ 301.](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/otago9&div=27&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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Golf and the Law: More than Errant Golf Balls
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