WASHINGTON TOWNSHIP, Mich. – Golfers are being told to practice their swings somewhere other than a cemetery where balls and tees dot the manicured lawn. White paint outlined five areas from which golfers teed off toward the dozens of gravestones in the Washington Township cemetery, north of Detroit.

Erin Robb said she found about 700 golf balls dotting the grass between the headstones of Civil War veterans and the freshly dug grave of her 33-year-old brother, Scott.

“It’s so disrespectful,” Robb told the Detroit Free Press on Wednesday. “You bury someone there, and it’s very private … and emotional.”

Anything beyond paying respects to the dead won’t be tolerated in the cemetery, township Supervisor Gary Kirsh said.

Information from: Detroit Free Press, http://www.freep.com

A service of the Associated Press(AP)