WHAT IS GOLF DOING FOR THE PLANET?

By Tim Southwell

I was recently involved in a rather heated debate on BBC Radio 2. The debate was titled: 'Golf versus Allotments —This Time It's Personal'. OK, I made the last bit up, but the debate was very real and had surfaced after Edinburgh Council drew up plans to  scrap several municipal golf courses and replace them with allotments. 

Naturally, I staunchly opposed the scrapping of anything to do with golf and, early in the debate, I had my adversary (an American lady with an unhealthy obsession with organic carrots) on the run with comments as witty and sharp as: "They don't call Scotland The Home Of Allotments' do they? No, it's The Home Of Golf!) when she suddenly cut me to the quick with: "Everyone knows that golf courses are bad for the environment, they use harmful pesticides and disrupt wildlife'. 

It got me thinking, I can tell you.  Even as a child I knew that golf courses didn't just grow on their own — 'The Man' had to put them there. Whether or not 'The Man' had any truck for the environment in that process, was none of my business. All I knew was that the world was a better place for every new golf course that was created. 

But here was Organic Nelly telling me it how it really was. For a second there, I felt rather sheepish. Golf clubs are businesses, after all. They've probably got enough on their plates turning a profit to start worrying about the environment. So I started looking into the whole thing. In fairness, I wasn't expecting much at first. If golf was doing something for the environment it would probably amount to little more than those stickers you see on formula one cars stating how green the fuel company behind it all really is. before cranking up the engines and ruining the environment.

Scratching the surface with golf could be more trouble than it's worth, simply confirming my fear that big business and big golf would be too busy clearing out half the rain forests in order to build the world's biggest crazy golf course, and land grabbing the hell out of natural wildlife parks and turning them into big bank-sponsored golf multiplexes. 

But then I came across an organisation called GER (www.golfenvironment.com) and found out that golf  actually is doing something for the planet, thank you very much!.

Jonathan Smith is CEO of GER, an organisation devoted to making sure that a) golf facilities are onside regarding their carbon footprint and b) that the wider world knows about it.

"The reason that golf has had a bad reputation regarding the environment was because initially golf organisations didn't invest heavily enough in the subject," says Jonathan. "They'd just been talking it for granted that golf has a good story to tell. So while golf has been sitting quietly, society has been changing, public and government expectation has been changing and the environmental agenda has been moving very quickly and golf has been left behind in the PR and marketing stakes. Golf has to show that it's properly engaged and is scientifically being proactive. The good news is that golf clubs both in terms of the Club and the Course are making enormous strides in the right direction."

These efforts include basic common sense initiatives such as 'turn the light/tap off' signs around the clubhouses to greater awareness and sensitivity from greenskeepers, an approach which is resulting in a claiming back of large parts of the golf course for natural habitat and integrating these areas with the course itself.

"More and more golf clubs and developers are becoming proactive and getting on the front foot," declares Jonathan. "The mood now is that you can't just languish and wait for legislation to come. These are what we call 'changing framework conditions'. There's not much golf can do about the fact that water budgets are shrinking, water defects are rising and energy costs are going up. It's about self-determination and UK golf courses are increasingly asserting that as a business they are going to be efficient, they're going to try to maximise the quality of their product, which means an ecologically rich stunning golf landscape, and they're going to get engaged with the local community about these issues. There are now hundreds of golf facilities around the world that are thinking about the environment in these terms." 

"In a European context, most of the water studies show that  if you test water quality before it comes onto the golf course and after it's left the golf course water is in a better state when it leaves. Golf courses allow for slow percolation of water through the site. The hydrology of a golf course is actually very complex. From the moment the water hits the surface it embarks on a biologically rich filter process through the grass itself, the thatch, the top soil, into the subsoil and then into the drainage system. Many golf courses don't have a built-in complex drainage system so it's a very natural slow draining system, constantly stripping out nitrogen, breaking down pesticides and by the time it leaves the golf course it should be in good shape."

A major breakthrough has been the recent l;eldership shown by major Golf institutions such as The European Tour and The R&A. At the Ryder Cupo in Celtic Manor this year, green issues will, for the first time, be part of the story.

"What the Ryder Cup Europe and European Tour have done has been to show great leadership to come out and say that golf in general needs to be more socially and environmentally responsible," says Jonathan. "Ryder Cup Europe are trying to package that into next year's Ryder Cup by demonstrating that the venue is looking after the environment and reducing the carbon footprint of the event. There will be 90% recycling and reuse of all waste materials that come off the site which is a significant achievement. Ryder Cup does shine a light on the fact that golf is starting to get this now and the fact that there is a green dimension to The Ryder Cup and so many people watch the event this will spur on the rest of the golf industry."

But what about Parsnip Lady from radio 2? She reckons golf courses are an environmental nuisance.

"One of the sites that she will be talking about would be Bray Hill Golf Club," acknowledges Jonathan. " In actual fact these golf courses are an incredible source of natural widlife. You can see rare birds, Red squirrels and badgers — a lot of wildlife large and small that you don't find anywhere else in Edinburgh. There are many bird surveys confirming that golf courses that have sought to naturalise itself i.e. maintaining natural habitats within the golf course - these courses can have more diversity and richness of bird wildlife than adjacent farmland handsome nature reserves. The RSPV will tell you that  naturalised golf course is an asset in urban areas there is no doubt about that."

If only I'd known all this before I went on Radio 2. Take that, Parsnip Lady.