fe ature ◗ eric lyons
Golf and the environment:
Water Management ◗ Growing up in a small city surrounded
by agriculture, as I did, leads to an interesting world perspective. Most of the industries were reliant on the nearby agricultural endeavors and there existed an almost innate understanding that the land provided for our needs. In order to survive, we had to use the land to produce food and other agricultural-based products. Finally, we had to develop and improve our management in a way that would allow future generations to also rely on the land. This led to an environmentally-based view that humans are reliant on the land for survival and, for that reason, should protect the land from degradation so our children’s children can also reap the benefits of the land. This view of the environment is described well in Aldo Leapold’s A Sand County Almanac, where it is argued that responsible management of the land must dominate human interaction with the environment. The book is often lumped together with Rachel Carson’s The Silent Spring as one of the cornerstone books of the modern environmental movement. While both books have influenced the movement, the “Land Ethic” theory that Leapold outlines is one that inherently realizes that humans interact with the environment and therefore change it. This is readily apparent when the upshot at the end of the book is read in the context of the entire work, but this idea is often lost when the Land Ethic is taken out of context. The realization that we, as humans, must interact with the environment, and also that we often create situations that are detrimental for future use of the environment, is important for creating a better world for future generations. The game of golf, with its unique placement of facilities near and within metropolitan centers, has great potential to minimize the detrimental impact of urban landscapes on the surrounding land and 36 greenMaster | www.golfsupers.com
water resources. The vast majority of golf courses are located near or in urban centers, primarily because this is where the golfers are located. Older golf courses are often located along rivers and creeks. This is not for esthetic reasons, but because these areas were sections of land susceptible to flooding and too precarious for agricultural, commercial or residential uses. Many golf courses built before 1940 sit in a river’s flood plain and have one or two holes on top of a hill located next to the clubhouse. The clubhouses were purposely placed on hilltops in order to protect them from the periodic floods associated with the rivers and streams. Golf became a sustainable economic endeavor in these areas because of the ability of the golf course landscape to resist erosion and, over time, create the beautiful, diverse settings we see today. One argument against golf course construction is that golf courses are built on what would otherwise be natural landscapes. However, for the majority of golf courses this is not the case. Most modern golf courses are built on former agriculture land or land that would otherwise be occupied for industrial or commercial use. The previous example of older golf courses occupying the flood plains in our cities is a good example of how golf courses have preserved green spaces in areas that would now be buildings and roads. With modern engineering, cement and steel, previously precarious lands prone to flooding can now be used for commercial endeavors, such as strip malls, in our metropolitan centers. When viewing satellite images of most large North American cities, the largest green space buffers around our rivers and streams are being preserved by golf courses. In areas without golf courses, the urban landscape has encroached right to the bank
of the river with possibly only a few meters of green space buffering the waterways from the urban industrial complex. In a few cases, these buffers are larger because they have been zoned as a public park. Unfortunately this is not a common practice as the economic pressures associated with maintaining and preserving urban parks make them susceptible to loss by commercialization. One of the largest problems facing today’s cities is effective water management. Golf courses are major contributors to positive water management in urban environments. An individual driving past the golf course can only see water consumption in its general form, that of irrigation systems. They also see areas consisting of green grass with healthy trees during summer drought periods and assume that golf courses must use large amounts of water. In some cases they are correct. It is difficult to justify the use of potable water on desert golf courses beyond the economic benefit they provide the community as any other industry using