The Greening of Golf

[Diane]

I get a bit frustrated when people tell me golf courses are bad for the environment so it's nice to see articles like that on the front page of today's NY Times.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/06/s...?_r=1&scp=1&sq=On fairway, new lessons&st=cse

 

[timbertoes]

Ignore those people.

 

[Diane]

Ignorance is bliss? Not really - this is good news for the industry. People need to know that golf courses aren't wasting water, but are in fact setting standards for water conservation strategies and that they create natural open spaces where wildlife can life in urban areas.

 

[PRO V1 KENOBE]

Something is alwasy bad for the enviroment,just so happens they picked golf this time.

 

[Diane]

Something is alwasy bad for the enviroment,just so happens they picked golf this time.

That attitude doesn't help anyone. It will help the industry to have the environmentalists on their side.

 

[PRO V1 KENOBE]

That attitude doesn't help anyone. It will help the industry to have the environmentalists on their side.

Golf and golf courses will suffer more from the financial problems that we are all experiencing,the tree huggers are way down the line.

 

[TheGasman]

Golf and golf courses will suffer more from the financial problems that we are all experiencing,the tree huggers are way down the line.

Of course it will be down the line with that attitude. If we all tried a little harder we could get golf way up the line. Use aerosol sunscreen, try not car pooling with your foursome, if each of us tried we could make a difference. :act-up:

But seriously, it shows that when money is at stake, people get creative. Im pretty sure rising water prices influence these courses a lot more then the environment.

 

[provisional]

The idea of water conservation is a great one to work on and apply. However, there are other issues going on with regards to water conservation.

Pollution is a big deal that few want to address. Try this scenario out, and since this is a golf forum, let's use a golf course for an example. There are more than few different types of chemicals, and fertilizers being used on a golf course to keep the grass playable for all of us. These chemicals can, and will seep into underground aquifiers which are major contiributers to our palatable water supply. What about a golf course that has a decent size creek, or river running next to it, or through it? What are the chances of some of these chemicals running into these rivers, or creeks, that might feed into an area where a water a company pulls water for public consumption? Do you think that a water supply company can take 100% of all pollutants out of your drinking water? Maybe, maybe not. (same goes for that bottled water stuff)

Then you have the folks who wash their cars in their drive ways with soaps, and other types of cleaners. They rinse their vehicles off and watch the polluted water run down the street, into a storm drain. How about all the petroleum slicks you see in parking lots? You get a down pour, and this stuff again washes into a storm drain located down the street some where. You would be hard pressed to find a city that treats storm drain water before it is allowed to run into a larger body of water, that may or may not be used as a palatable water supply.

Lake Powell National GC has a few ponds on it's property to help irrigate their golf course. In some of these ponds they have a seizable gold fish/koi population. After a heavy down pour a few months ago, there were thousands of dead fish floating in these ponds. I asked one of the workers what killed these fish. He told me it rained so hard that it washed the fertilizer that had previously been applied, into the pond to fast for the fish to survive. He said it dropped about 3" of rain in about 45 minutes. He also went on to say that this happens from time to time in the area. Dummy me, I am thinking they either purposely poisoned them, or lightening had struck the pond.

Sorry to be so long winded. I am one of those "tree huggers" folks don't care to hear from. :banana: :clapp:

 

[timbertoes]

Ignorance is bliss? Not really - this is good news for the industry. People need to know that golf courses aren't wasting water, but are in fact setting standards for water conservation strategies and that they create natural open spaces where wildlife can life in urban areas.

I meant ignore people who want to make you feel bad for playing golf.

 

[C-Tech]

Here is what I don't understand about a lot of this argument....

1. If golf courses are so bad, why do a lot of people advocate "green belts" in subdivisions to make them more palatable.

2. If turf grass is so bad, why don't we make people scrape their yards and put down gravel instead?

3. If fertilizer is so bad, why isn't every stream running through farmland dead?

It seems to me every time we do something in the name of saving the environment, it comes back to haunt us in some way later. I read an article lately where farming without fertilizer caused more land to be brought into production (and cut down more forest) which caused more problems with global warming while at the same time, starving a very needy population because crop yields were off significantly.

I'm not against "green" initiatives to help conserve our resources, but why can't we make sure we are having the desired effect? A question along these lines no one wants to address is electric cars.... in order to power an electric car, you have to generate electricity to store in a battery. Batteries are inherently polluting as well as dangerous. Also, to generate electricity, it takes 3X the fuel it would to just use it directly to power the car. Generating the electricity is more polluting than running the engine. Where is the net gain for the environment in that?

 

[Epikon]

Here is what I don't understand about a lot of this argument....

1. If golf courses are so bad, why do a lot of people advocate "green belts" in subdivisions to make them more palatable.

2. If turf grass is so bad, why don't we make people scrape their yards and put down gravel instead?

3. If fertilizer is so bad, why isn't every stream running through farmland dead?

1. Green space is always better then a paved parking lot for the environment, pavement creates more run off and all the chemicals and pollutants get washed rapidly into the nearest pond or river. If you have green space the soil absorbs more of the rain and creates less run off.

2. No one is saying grass is bad, its the chemicals we put on them.

3. They are... I saw a special on TV not long ago about how the farming industry is putting everything they have into covering this up. I don't remember the specifics but the point was there are thousands of chemicals in our drinking water we can't filter out and have no idea what affect they have on humans. What we do know is the fish that are living in this water are not fairing well. I'm not good on the details of all this stuff but its pretty much repeating what provisional said with the fish example.

 

[AHacker'sHacker]

C-Tech, I agree, there always seems to be unintended consequences.

Consider the famous tire reef in FL where man was going to help the environment: http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-02-17-florida-reef_x.htm

DDT is another prime example. Many studies show that it is not nearly as dangerous as originally thought and that many lives have been lost because of it world-wide agricultural ban.

Another example: 6 acres of solar panels to generate 3% of one manufacturing facilities needs. At that rate it would only take 200 acres of solar panels to run the facility. Seem economical or environmental friendly? Anheuser-Busch - Press Releases - 2007

Too often what we initially think is often not correct and if we act on those assumptions we cause unintended consequences and therefore greater harm. We should be good stewards of the earth but many "environmental" movements are simply wrong in their assumptions or not really concerned about the environment but rather from shepherding in a political agenda, in my opinion.

All the above being said, if golf can economically put on a “green” persona I think it could possibly be good for the game by attracting new players and quieting some of the critics.