What is this structure called?

Question

I hope the photo is visible. (After a while Yahoo! seems to delete any photo attached to a question. I don't know why).
However I was in Nebraska and saw this structure and though I have seen  these kinds of structures before I had not seen one exactly like this. It seems to be made of very tall poles which (in this instance) are wider at the bottom where they are staked into the ground  than they are at the top where they tower over ground level and then the poles are lined up to form some kind of square  and  there is some kind of  gigantic mesh net that is attached to the poles and goes completely around. I am not sure what it is used for and one thing that comes to my mind is how potentially dangerous such a structure is because high winds should be easily able to blow off the netting. Also once the poles are constructed or installed, it seems that the net has to be regularly changed since nets can break of wear down with time and how to workers put up such a net on such tall poles? This structure seemed to be as tall as a 15 story building at least.

Anonymous · Answer

That's to keep sporting balls confined to the playing area to prevent balls from hitting people, damaging buildings, or disrupting traffic.  They've been around for 20 years at least and are fairly common in built-up areas where otherwise such sports wouldn't be possible due to the very much higher risk of a ball going through someone's windshield than the netting being blown over.  Those poles are usually fiberglass, they don't weigh much and the wind passes through the net, so it's not like a giant sail.  The nets are easy to install with the right kind of crane, they do get renewed after a few years.  If they were regularly blowing away they'd have been abandoned years ago after a few trial runs, as it is they are good and used all over the world.

Billybean · Answer

Looks like a golf driving range.

T C · Answer

My guess is ........ a two tier golf driving range.

Anonymous · Answer

Only ones like that I have seen are around sports areas where the risk of a ball going into the path of something else poses a danger. You see them on golf practice sites adjacent to buildings or roads. We built a football pitch next to a river and costed doing something similar. It was decided it would be cheaper to replace any lost balls than erect this kind of thing.

What is this structure called?

4 Answers