Fury has erupted in the tiny seaside Scottish town of Oban after a brazen thief stole new rolls of turf from the local golf club, just three hours after they were delivered.
Glencruitten Golf Club in the Argyll and Bute town had the turf delivered to the car park at around 12.30pm on March 18 to redo the eighth hole.
Greenkeepers immediately took the first load there – but when they returned for the rest at around 3.45pm, 12 rolls were gone, the tarpaulin over them brazenly removed.
Club secretary John Tannahill, 72, of Glasgow, told : ‘The whole club are disgusted by it and quite concerned that somebody would have the knowledge to try to time it in such a way.’
He reckoned the value of the stolen goods was only ‘in the low hundreds’- and greenkeepers have since been able to complete work, which started in November, with new materials.
But it was more about the emotional impact, he explained, ‘given the amount of work the greenkeepers had put into doing it and then having all of that trauma’.
They also wanted to be ready for top Scottish golfer Robert MacIntyre’s visit this week – it is his home course and his father is head greenkeeper there.
Despite the club’s social media appeal for the culprit to come forward, no one has – and members’ suggestions to fly a drone over the town to see if anyone’s garden was suddenly looking fresher were shot down.
Mr Tannahill reckoned the thief, who shamelessly removed the large stones weighing down the tarpaulin put over the pile of turf in the car park, is local.
He said: ‘It would have been easy enough to see the delivery arrive. So, it wouldn’t necessarily needed to have been someone who knew it was coming.
‘They may just have been someone who’s passing on that road and saw it being delivered and then has gone back on the chance, and found that the car park was empty so were able to go ahead and do it.’
The club posted an appeal on social media last weekend: ‘We have screenshots of the theft of a number of bales of turf stolen from the car park at the golf club earlier in the week.
‘If the “individual” concerned comes forward now, then we will not pursue this with the police.’
Sadly, no one has come clean yet, the secretary said: ‘It’s really quite irritating but to be quite honest, I didn’t expect to get a response from it anyway from the individual.
‘What I thought I might have got was somebody indicating who it was.’
They have some pictures from a neighbour of the theft in action, he added: ‘But it’s quite distant and it can’t be refocussed so there isn’t sufficient detail.
‘We have an individual, we know what he’s wearing, we know the colour of the car, but that’s really all we have.’
With ‘absolutely nothing’ more in the way of information, Mr Tannahill – who lives in Glasgow but has a property in Oban – said there is ‘no point’ pursuing it with police.
Club members had thought one way to sleuth for the culprit would be to look at local gardens, to see if anyone’s lawn suddenly looked a lot fresher.
One particular suggestion about how to do this was quickly shot down, he said: ‘There’s been quite a lot of talk about that in the club, suggestions that we should put a drone up to have a look at all the gardens and things like that.’
But the secretary thought it was unlikely they would see the stolen rolls laid anywhere now.
He said: ‘At this stage now, the turf, if it hasn’t been laid somewhere else, it wouldn’t be of any use to anyone, it doesn’t last that long, when it’s in bales.’
It is the first time the club has been stolen from, Mr Tannahill explained: ‘It’s also the largest project that has been undertaken on the course for some years.’
And greenkeepers wanted to make sure the course was in good shape for Mr MacIntyre, home ahead of the Masters Tournament next month: ‘His dad works really hard making sure that it is.’
It is not the only bizarre theft that has happened across the country in recent weeks.
A Creme Egg thief has been banned from the entire county of Cambridgeshire after stealing £220.50 of the chocolate treats from a Peterborough petrol station.
Deon De Groot, 26, was stopped as he tried to escape after stealing 70 of the Cadbury sweets from a Tesco Express store in the Dogsthorpe area of the city last Saturday.
The culprit, of no fixed address, was on Tuesday banned from entering Cambridgeshire for the next three months and sentenced to 12 weeks in prison, suspended for a year, at Peterborough Magistrates’ Court.
It also follows the theft of a Paddington Bear statue by two RAF engineers in the town of Newbury, Berkshire on March 2 – which was caught on CCTV.
Daniel Heath and William Lawrence, both 22, broke up the fiberglass model of the ‘beloved’ children’s book character in author Michael Bond’s hometown.
On sentencing, district judge Sam Goozee said the pair’s act – done after a day’s drinking at Newbury Races – was the ‘antithesis of everything Paddington stands for’.
They were both given a community order, having to pay £2,275 each to cover the cost of repairs and complete 150 hours of unpaid work over 12 months.