Gerth: Battle against Topgolf Louisville cost two years and lots of money for nothing

I’m not much of a golfer.

The last time I touched my clubs was 19 years ago. I was in the process of moving, and I took the sticks out of my garage at one house and stuck them in the attic of the new house.

It wasn’t that my game wasn’t good. It was horrible.

I’m a big guy who could blast the ball a long way, but I had no idea where the ball was going. Left. Right. Wherever.

Unless I topped the ball.

Then, it would bounce down the fairway, threatening the lives of every squirrel, bird, mole and any other low-slung wildlife within 100 yards or so.

So, it’s odd that I’d be as pleased with Topgolf at Oxmoor as I am.

I’ve got no skin in this game.

I’ve heard it’s nice, but I’ve got no desire to go and hit golf balls there, or anywhere. And while I still have a drink with dinner on occasion, I don’t go and hang out at bars very often anymore.

But I am.

Pleased, with Topgolf, that is.

Why?

I wrote back in 2019 about what I saw as a harassment campaign in which neighbors fought in the courts to stop the company from building where the Sears had operated for three decades at Oxmoor Center. A couple of lawsuits and appeals delayed the project for two years.

I wrote about the adverse effects it has on communities when malls go belly up and ticked off people when I suggested Macy’s, Von Maur and Kate Spade could be replaced by Big Lots, Ollie’s Bargain Outlet and Burlington Coat Factory.

They thought I was being classist.

The fact is, higher-end retailers have a better impact on property values than the type of businesses we often see in 50-year-old strip malls.

I was a little bit obsessed with this. If I was out of town in a city that had a Topgolf, I’d try to drive by to scope it out and see what kind of impact it had on the surrounding homes and businesses.

From Indianapolis to Phoenix, I’d go and look around see if things looked as bad as people feared here. If there was a neighborhood nearby, I’d drive through it to see if there was noise or lights or anything that would harm property values.

I never found anything.

Topgolf opened in Louisville just over a year ago and I haven’t seen any complaints.

More: How much noise does Topgolf in St. Matthews make? They did a study. Here's what it said

I did a search for “noise” and “Topgolf,” and all I found were old news stories about neighbors’ concerns before the facility was built and more stories from last month when Topgolf released a noise study that found noise levels in the neighborhoods were only marginally higher than when there was an empty Sears building tacked onto the back of the mall.

That study showed that noise increased by fewer than three decibels at most locations and times, which engineers said is barely perceptible to the human ear. At one location during a one-hour period, the study found the noise increased by five decibels.

Over the past year at different times, I’ve driven the neighborhoods around Topgolf looking for signs that the facility has harmed the views. Day and night.

You can’t see any signs of the business from the neighborhoods.

You can’t see the nets that keep golf balls from smashing through car windows or the tall poles that hold them up. You can’t see the lights that illuminate the hitting bays or the driving range.

Not in the daytime or the night.

(At least not from the streets. I didn’t go traipsing through backyards for fear of being shot.)

The most obnoxious lighting was visible only after leaving the Oxmoor Woods subdivision and driving toward Topgolf along Oxmoor Woods Parkway.

I emailed Steve Porter, the lawyer representing opponents of Topgolf, to ask if my take — Topgolf really hasn’t harmed the nearby neighborhoods — is correct.

He said after visiting numerous Topgolf locations, he came to believe noise wouldn't be a problem, but he was most concerned about lights shining into people's backyards and increased traffic, particularly from drunken drivers. He said he checked with the city of Hurstbourne, which said it hasn't seen any traffic problems largely because retail traffic in the area is down overall.

But it looks to me like the whole battle was much to do about nothing.

Fore!

Joseph Gerth can be reached at 502-582-4702 or by email at jgerth@courierjournal.com.

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Topgolf Louisville concerns from Oxmoor Center neighbors unjustified