Golf courses are struggling to keep up in a changing world

By Grace Mueller ‘23

As the world has charged forward with new business practices and the desire to be environmentally friendly, golf is struggling to keep up. 

A golf course in Palm Desert. Image captured by Rory Mueller.

In an effort to draw new clientele, while maintaining past clients, the United States Golf Association (USGA) is pouring money into researching more environmentally friendly policies. They have invested more than $40 million into environmental research. 

Last April, USGA also committed to the United Nations Sports for Climate Action Initiative, a platform that allows sport leaders to have a space that exclusively focuses on climate action. This forum gives opportunities for organizations to collaborate on mutual interest areas, learn good practices, and support one another in their quest for a greener future. USGA has already practiced this spirit by deciding to reduce their usage of critical resources by 25% by the year 2025, while improving golf satisfaction by 20%.

While USGA has been looking into greener practices, golf courses still contribute a large amount to climate change. One of the largest contributors to their carbon footprint is centered around managing the large amount of space. On average, golf courses span between 100 and 190 acres. To put that into perspective, Disneyland sits on 85 acres. There are over 15,000 golf course in the United States (US).

To manage the large courses, businesses use large diesel-powered machines to mow the grass and care for surrounding plants. While diesel-powered engines do emit less carbon dioxide than gas-powered engines, using heavy machinery still has a negative impact on the environment. The heavy machinery disrupts soil properties and unearths deeper subsoil. When topsoil is revealed, it struggles to hold onto roots and is easily washed away by water. This creates a toxic cycle that is extremely harmful to nearby plants and roots.

For their part, USGA has implemented different regulations to reduce the damage from water usage. Golf courses are instructed to plan irrigation patterns, water at appropriate times to reduce evaporation rates, and try to avoid unnecessary use of natural surrounding water resources. 

Golf courses use an average of 1.44% of the nation’s irrigation water supply. However, recycled water is used by only 15.3% of owners. The effect on the nation’s irrigation water supply has decreased by 11.5% since 2005. Unfortunately, due to varying temperatures, courses in the southwestern US have been forced to increase their irrigation.

“Many golf courses have had to water much more during the summer due to rising temperatures,” stated Tyler Rockwell, an avid golfer of 13 years. 

However, watering the large greens is not the main contributing factor to their footprint. No matter which way you look at it, the construction of American golf courses do heavily disrupt the surrounding ecosystems. As golf courses tend to be quite large, the construction of courses often forces the removal of natural space. 

“In a lot of places what you had to take out was a forest or some native habitat,” shared Alex Williamson, Upper School Science teacher. 

Traditional golf courses have vibrant, lime green grass that are lined with non-native plant species. The grass and plant species tend to further disorder the natural surrounding ecosystems as they are usually non-native species. 

The most common species of laid grass is Zoysia grass. While Zoysia grass happens to be somewhat adaptive, it produces an average of 902 pounds of carbon dioxide per acre, per year. Using the average acreage of golf courses (145), each golf course emits approximately 130,790 pounds of carbon dioxide per year simply due to the grass and its management. In comparison, an average vehicle emits 101,000 pounds of carbon dioxide per year. 

USGA has put forth lots of effort to develop more sustainable grass. USGA spent over two years studying the effects of different species of grass and found that turfgrass, a mixture of more durable grasses that will withstand less irrigation and upkeep, has the potential to produce a lesser carbon than Zoysia grass. Turfgrass will have a similar appearance to Zoysia grass but will have a kinder carbon footprint.  

Williamson brought up the idea of repurposing golf courses into something that provides more accessible entertainment for a wider audience. He thought that repurposing golf courses as basketball courts or soccer fields would be a great way to use the land. Williamson also believes that roller coaster theme parks would be a better use of that space. 

“If what we are trying to get out of this land is recreational activities, hell, you could turn it into a roller coaster park and it would be much much more efficient at delivering [entertainment and economical purposes] per unit.” 

Repurposing golf courses into other recreational activities would allow a wider variety of demographics to enjoy that space in a more environmentally, financially, and economically friendly way. Repurposing would hand the struggling golf courses a gracious way out. 

Here are eleven simple ways to take climate action right now and a quick and informative article that contains information in regards to the specific ways that climate change has and will continue to impact Earth.