by Heath Bartlett
Potable water on golf courses - lunacy.
Reclaimed water is a great step, but look to the Middle East for inspiration. In Egypt - the Sinai in fact - there are already 2 courses that use sea water for irrigation. They use a strain of grass specially developed to be salt resistant. Even though Egypt struggles for enough potable water in places, these golf courses flourish on good old seawater.
Another weapon the arsenal that we should be using to beat those tree-hugging-hippy-do-gooder-wannabees around the head until they stark talking sense!
Golf - environmentally unfriendly - maybe in some places. But it doesn't need to be...

by King Robert of Shankalot
This argument has been going on for decades and will most likely continue for decades more to come.
The fact of the matter is that golf courses are GOOD for the environment as they provide green areas which act as a set of lungs for an area. Far better than another industrial park or shopping centre.
I do agree with the rising global concerns over food shortages, but that is the fault of greedy developers who cannot wait to jump on the bandwagon and near-sighted government officials who allow use of farmland for golf projects.
Farmland should NEVER be used. Food security is far more important than golf. But having said that, golf courses are wonderful ways to clean up a despoiled area.
For proof, look at Blue Canyon or Phuket Country Club (both courses are in Phuket, Thailand) and were build on reclaimed tin mine sites. Yes, the owners literally turned tin mines into gold mines.
Groups like GAG'M (Global Anti-Golf Movement) are lunatics who exaggerate almost every little thing.
That is not to say that there aren't problems that we in the industry need to address. More advances in turf grass science has allowed development of strains which use less water and are more disease resistant. Grass which thrives on effluent and can tolerate salt (such as seashore paspalum) reduce the amount of clean water used for irrigation.
Golf provides thousands of jobs at each course here in SE Asia, provides tax revenue and a healthy athletic activity.
We should not be so blind as to kill the golden goose.

by left coast duffer
Re-claimed water is the future. Here in Santa Barbara, every golf course uses re-claimed H2O from our sanitation district for the fairways, yes, salts tends to build up in the turf, but winter rains pretty much take care of the problem. The only places that are used with regular water are the greens. As a matter of fact, our area uses the reclaimed water on all city parks and street meridians.
I have talked to friends in the Scottsdale area and have been told they still use potable water for parks, golf courses etc...That's crazy
I also think that most courses in the future should go more for the links style with native vegetation between fairways.
Just a few thoughts from a town where we had to paint our lawns green during heavy drought years.

by Tom
In the desert SW, where I live, a 160 acre championship golf course does more to trap co2 and expel oxygen than 16,000 acres of natural desert, so the enviro whackos argument goes out the window.
The anwer is not fewer goldf courses, but more. We need one 160 acre golf course per 1,000 acres. We need for all the Illinoians to move back home, since all they do is complain about the desert and rave about how great Chicago is. They won't be missed, but they can come back every winter when it's 190 degrees below zero there, and 78 above here and play golf to their hearts content. Each Illinoian can be granted a two week visa to visit Arizona and can be take both at the same time, or one week in January and another in March. Their carbon footpriont in the SW can be offset by making ride bikes or roller blades to the golf courses.