How green is golf?
By Mohinder Singh

A BATTLE is brewing between environmentalists and golfing groups. And this is set to get fiercer with golf-course construction booming in almost every country. Even former communist nations and a few existing ones are no longer immune from the game’s attractions.

Many an environmentalist has come to rate golf as a serious environmental problem; golf courses eating up vast chunks of natural reserves, coupled with intensive use of water and toxic chemicals. Golfing establishments counter by claiming that newer trends in golf-course design and maintenance are eco-friendly; indeed these improve the environment. Golfers, some say, were possibly "the first environmentalists" who "replace their own divots."

Anti-golfers are particularly active in Japan — one per cent of the country’s area is already covered with golf links, and other East Asian countries where golfing has assumed the proportions of a national craze. To protestors the spawning of hundreds of new courses — "the most frivolous use of land for the entertainment of a few" — is "uprooting entire villages" and "luring female caddies into prostitution." They even want existing golf courses to be turned into parks or wilderness.

In this context they laud Britain’s Duke of Westminster who loosed a herd of deer on his golf course and converted it into a park. And the Chinese authorities recently ordering a halt to golf-course development as a part of campaign against wasteful spending — China is otherwise heralded as the next golf frontier.

All this anti-golfing anger leaves golfers stunned. "Why do they hate golf?" they often ask in disbelief. They find it hard to accept that something meant as an innocent leisure diversion can trigger such hostility.

How green is golf? This has given rise to a fairly acrimonious debate.

An average golf course requires around 200 acres of land for its exclusive use. And it better be close to an urban centre for its patrons to travel shorter distances.

Golf courses are great guzzlers of water; a major golfing complex requiring something like 3,000 cubic metres of water a day for the fairways, greens, clubhouse, and other facilities. And still more water for a course designed with water hazards. If the water comes from a dam or stream, it’s usually at the cost of agriculture or urban use. Pumping up huge amounts — which golf clubs commonly resort to — can lower the water table for neighbouring users.

On top, massive applications of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides, more so for maintaining the manicured greens. The toxins leach into surrounding lands as well as get washed down to low-lying water sources.

It is further made out that golf courses with their tightly-controlled environment, largely destroy the richness of fauna and flora obtaining in a natural habitat.

But what worries environmentalists more is the explosion of interest in golf during the last 2-3 decades. It is the fastest growing sport in the world and this trend looks likely to continue. The number of active golfers in the world is estimated at 50 million, and is increasing every year by nearly 10 per cent. Women and children, too are taking to the game in a big way.

New Yorkers, for example, wanting to play golf on nearby public courses on a weekend often stay all night in their car-queues for a turn to tee up in the morning.Millions of Japanese content themselves with hitting shots on those multi-layered practice ranges, without ever stepping on an actual golf course.

We ourselves may be having over a million Indians interested in playing golf. If they all have to have their wish, you need a thousand courses; the existing hundred or so with their highly restricted membership just won’t be enough. Previously the Army with its cantonment lands was mainly instrumental in putting up golf courses but now big business has stepped in. With the sort of money chasing golf, umpteen new courses are sure to come up, despite all the problems of securing land and fighting off other opposing interests.

Another phenomenon drawing flak from environmentalists is golf tourism, termed "tourism of the worst kind", because of its heavy demand on local resources of land and water. Golf as an added tourist attraction to a place has been an accepted pattern but golf tourism per se and that also of foreign tourists is being attempted in a big way by some East Asian countries such as Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, and Singapore. The last one —a small country 42 km by 22.5km — has 11 golf courses and another 10 are planned.

Golf establishments are busy rebutting the charge of golf causing environmental degradation. They make out they are themselves fighting the "Augusta syndrome" — an obsession with lush, closely cut greens like the ones seen during televised tournaments. The new golf-course architecture economizes on land and water and chemicals. US Golf Association is particularly looking for technological fixes, including grasses that naturally repel pests and stay green even in a drought. A vast amount of research has gone into developing turf grasses, into drainage systems that minimise runoff and in creating habitats that attract wildlife. Some new courses preserve wild life "in the rough", which can occupy up to 70 per cent of a course.

Indeed there are the beginnings of a movement whereby golf gets back to nature — the way game was originally shaped by the landscape in Scotland, and not the game that shaped the land. Using natural landforms and native grasses and plants, golf course designers are creating links that pride in being environment friendly. The fairways, using natural contours, are left bumpy and rugged. And hazards are mainly provided by the existing thickets of bush and boulders. Even Audubon International has recognised some of the courses as environmentally compatible. Of course these links won’t be hosting prestigious tournaments and would be avoided by picky golfers, yet they can yield fair satisfaction to a lot of players.

To cut down on costs as well as on water and chemicals use, the idea of synthetic golf grass has been mooted. Greens — averaging about 5,000 square feet for 18 holes — are the part of a golf layout most susceptible to substitution. Because their bent grass is kept shorter than God intended, it is especially vulnerable to sun, frost, insects, not to mention the pounding from human feet. Keeping up a good putting surface entails lots of water, loads of fungicides and fertilizers, let alone skilled groundskeeping and heavy cost.

Synthetic greens are being tried on an experimental basis. And with technological improvements, these imitation greens can "hold" incoming shots and provide truer roll than actual turf. Yet any large scale use of synthetic grass for greens is unlikely because they can never provide the feel and complexity of natural turf — "it’s like eating imitation cheese."

Some others make out that golf computer revolution may divert many golfers to "virtual" golf instead of tramping on actual links, more so for training and practice purposes. But this again would provide no substitute for real golf; in fact it could only heighten the participants’ interest in the game.

As things are, the game of golf is on a winning spree, howsoever anti-golfers may rail against it. More and more people everyday are being drawn into the game. Happily there exists considerable scope to keep golf courses environment friendly. Golf can be made greener.