Play It Green

Do I secretly rejoice when another article comes out blasting golf for its eco-sins? A little. I live not far from a golf course, and yet I will never be welcome to set foot on that course. Instead, just a handful of men, trailed by caddies who carry their clubs, are allowed the privilege. And most egregious: during the winter, the “No Sledding” signs prominently displayed on chains blocking the property. If the golfers can’t enjoy their rolling hills during the winter months, it seems, nobody can.

Anyway, The Ecologist, a UK-based environmental mag that’s unashamedly political, presents “Taking a Swing at Golf” in its July/August issue, and guess what? Golf is still an environmental nightmare. In the middle of a major water crisis, Las Vegas’ 60 golf courses, the story reports, each use a million gallons of water a day. The water that is wasted on golf courses every day–9.5 billion liters–could meet the needs of 4/5ths of the world’s population each day. There is something just inherently evil in that calculation.

If more people could enjoy or use golf courses, maybe there would be some justification. If there weren’t desertification happening across the planet and over 1 billion people without access to safe drinking water, maybe we could all cut golf a break.

And then there’s this disturbing factoid, thanks to the article’s sidebar: The U.S. military owns and operates more than 100 golf courses worldwide at taxpayer expense, from West Virginia to Saudi Arabia. And the author writes, ”the Pentagon is planning a $5 billion tourism and development scheme inside the Green Zone in Baghdad, including shopping malls, hotels and - of course - a golfing resort.”

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Since Tiger Woods is such a media darling, golf is getting more attention than it has in years. As much respect as Woods deserves (and he gets a lot, thanks to his dominance, his charm and his drastic difference from those older white fellows on the course), it’s hard to characterize golf as anything but an environmental nightmare. Recycle the water, cut down on pesticides—it’s still a grotesque waste of land and resources, creating an idyllic, but entirely unnatural environment for just a handful of khaki-wearing members to enjoy.

But without chucking the sport altogether, researchers are looking at ways to make golf environmentally responsible. And those at the University of Massachusetts Amherst may have hit on a good first solution—plants that act as “living filters” at the edge of golf courses. While these plants won’t change the amount of pesticides, herbicides and fungicides applied on the courses to keep them so perfectly green, they will help prevent those residual chemicals from ending up in the soil and groundwater. According to the press release, 5 to 10 percent of the total pesticides applied are lost in runoff. And, says Guy Lanza, a professor of environmental science, “Once in the water, these chemicals affect the health of a wide variety of aquatic organisms, everything from bacteria and algae to fish and frogs. They may also pose a health risk to humans, but this is less certain.” Thanks to their large root systems, plants like blue flag and gamagrass could reduce pesticides by up to 94 percent—and they look real pretty, too.

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Let’s give thanks that golfers (or at least golf magazines) are aware that they have an environmental impact. The Golf & the Environment Initiative has been working out the sticky issues since 1995 according to an extensive piece in Golf Digest. But they’ve barely scratched the surface. In what the magazine is calling it’s most important article ever, the downloadable 27-page How Green is Golf? takes the industry to task by merely pointing out the obvious.

Water is scarce and getting scarcer. U.S. courses use some 300,000 gallons of water per day, even as population growth and global warming are leading to a worldwide water scarcity that is likely to be frightening in scope (try 1.8 billion without enough to drink by 2025). There are pesticides, a constant issue in golf where perfect green courses are the norm. Author John Barton says matter-of-factly that those pesky environmentalists aren’t going away and the “freakishly green wall-to-wall grass on a life support system of too much water and toxic chemicals” is likely to get stigmatized, by and by.

Golf resorts styled after Augusta’s exclusive rich-guy’s-only model may become the very symbol of resource-depleting, self-serving excess (a.k.a., the new Hummer). Speaking to a golf course architect (Mike Hurdzan) and an eco-activist (Jay Feldman of Beyond Pesticides) and other leaders as well as conducting their own surveys of golfers versus non-golfers, the article is perhaps the first honest look at the sport’s impact.

As could be expected, those sounding off on the forum are less than pleased with the Digest’s sudden left-turn. “Please leave Al Gore’s money making, socialist scam out of golf,” writes one. “Obviously the editors of Golf Digest have bought into this hoax of global warming, or if you prefer we can call it climate change so there is no chance of being proven a complete fool so long as the weather changes daily,” writes another.

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Golf may be on the decline across the U.S., but it couldn’t be hotter (literally!) in Dubai. According to Mohammed Juma Buamaim, VP of Golf in Dubai, “Right now we have too many golfers, and not enough courses. “It’s become impossible to get a tee time on the weekend if you’re not a member at one of the clubs.” They’re catching up fast, having shut down the city’s sand-only course in favor of grass courses of which there are now seven. One of these is a 7,539-yard (two 18-hole) course set to open to the public next month at Dubai Sports City. Four more golf courses are set to open there next year, including the first designed by Tiger Woods, which will be attached to an exclusive 80-suite boutique hotel. It will be a par-72 course called Al Ruwaya or “Serenity” in Arabic. “What they are doing is frankly phenomenal,” Woods told the AP before winning his second Dubai Desert Classic title this month. At the moment, Dubai’s golfing is drawing mostly expats from the U.K., Ireland and Australia. They apparently don’t mind the fact that each course requires 1 million gallons of treated sewage a day in the water-starved United Arab Emirates. While treated sewage water is better than drinking water, it’s wasting a lot of energy to keep those courses green. Then again, it’s nowhere near the ecological footprint of Dubai’s endless upscale hotels and indoor ski parks.

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My first response to the news that golf is on the decline was a happy one. What sport is more wasteful of space and resources while serving only the smallest (richest) segment of the population? And there is a hope that some of this land that’s been groomed with equal parts pesticides and water will be returned to nature as a result of golf’s falling stature (though developments and McMansions seem more likely). But there’s another sad lesson here. The decline in golfing parallels a wider nature-phobia that’s swept the country since the onset of passive “activities” like online gaming and web surfing. Still, golf’s number is up due to a change in societal expectations on men—they’re expected to be home with the family, not out on a golf course all weekend, according to the New York Times article on the subject. Clearly young people aren’t getting into the sport, for which the hideous attire must be partially to blame, but all the baby boomers who were supposed to flock to the courses haven’t materialized either. Says the article: Developers built more than 3000 new golf courses in the U.S. between 1990 and 2003, bringing the number to 16,000. Now hundreds have closed in the last few years, primarily in Arizona, Florida, Michigan and South Carolina. Considering the combined acreages of these courses—each 18-hole course runs about 75 acres of maintained turf in a larger 150 acre plot, and 70 percent of that land is unused during play—and the shortage of resources, maybe it is time for golfers to get some new priorities.

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