They declared the game, particularly as played by summer-season swells who swoop in and out on private jets, to be a kind of recreational poison that is slowly but surely killing the clam-digging, beachcombing, plaid-shirt-wearing soul of Martha's Vineyard.
"A golf course is the epitome of suburban leisure and affluence," said James Athearn, a commission member from Edgartown who voted against the new course. He described golf as a cultural steamroller that was crushing "the character and identity that we are trying to preserve."