When the ancestor of the modern golf game (as many experts believe) emerged in medieval Scotland, players often simply made use of whatever natural features—i.e. fields, hills, rabbit holes, etc.—were available. However, today’s golf course requires strict landscaping in order to allow a standard game to be played on it. With the mainstreaming of environmental movements, concern has been growing over the effect of golf course construction on fragile ecosystems. This is particularly true in southern California, which has several hundred large golf courses.
Golf courses have the potential to have a huge effect on the area in which they are built. For instance, natural features like hillocks can simply be bulldozed out of the way in order to make way for a generically-designed course. Plants (perhaps including rare or endangered specimens) can be destroyed to be replaced with carefully-manicured turf. Of course, animals living in the area are likely to lose their food and natural cover, so local fauna will also suffer. Add to this the air and water pollution from human activity, and it begins to make a great deal of sense why golf courses have some activists up in arms.
Some environmentalists will argue that any golf course is by nature damaging to the environment. Any measures to make a golf course “greener” can never come close to outweighing the environmental harm the establishment would cause.
What incentive could golf course owners have to make the effort to design and manage more eco-friendly establishments? Well, we might guess that some of them do so partially out of sincere desires to minimize environmental damage. However, there are also practical economic reasons to do so.
Firstly, an environmentally friendly/friendlier golf course would be more attractive to players who have begun to feel somewhat guilty and dismayed about how courses affect ecosystems. Such players are more likely to visit these “green” courses instead of similar venues that cannot convincingly make similar claims. Secondly, courses that use less aggressive landscaping measures tend to have more distinctive layouts, since they are forced to incorporate some of the unique natural features in the area into their design. Thirdly, measures that save resources like water and electricity also reduce utility costs. In short, being eco-friendly can also be very practical, particularly in the long run. The investment in computerized sprinklers and organic pest control then becomes more than justified.
Unfortunately, the economic benefits of “greening” a golf course do not materialize immediately, particularly given the cost of research and innovation. For example, over the past few decades, the United States Golf Association has spent tens of millions of dollars on environmental research.
It is likely that no matter what golf course owners do, they will be unable to satisfy all environmentalists, some of which would prefer the golf courses in question not to be there at all. However, it is to be hoped that the emerging trend for “green” courses will eventually become the standard, and that environmental considerations will be a routine concern for all course designers.