Golf’s eco-benefits? The industry is lobbying to get the word out

It’s not hard to sell golfers on the benefits of golf. Fresh air. Exercise. Camaraderie. Challenge. The upsides grow more obvious with every swing.

It’s the rest of the world that sometimes needs convincing.

Among many non-golfers — let’s not mince words here — the game suffers from an image problem. 

That’s the bad news. The good news is, reality is not the same as reputation, and changing public perception does not require spin.

Golf has a positive story to tell, and it’s telling it in Washington, D.C., this week.

Thursday is National Golf Day, an annual occasion that draws golf industry leaders to the nation’s capital for conversations with legislators. Those conversations cover a range of topics, but the thrust of them is this: Golf courses aren’t just pretty places to knock a ball around.

In the bigger picture, they’re community assets, contributing to public health and welfare as unspoiled open spaces and avenues for outdoor recreation. Properly managed, they can deliver environmental benefits, too, particularly in urban areas where green acreage is limited. Their verdant expanses provide habitat for wildlife. They help sequester carbon, improve air quality and contain stormwater runoff, which combats flooding. They cool down their surroundings during hot spells.  

In 2018, Congress took those facts into account when it hammered out the details of the Farm Bill. As its name suggests, the Farm Bill deals primarily with the country’s agricultural food supply. But it also carries profound implications for golf through money earmarked for turf-grass research.

Turf covers 60 million-plus acres in the United States, making it the country’s fourth largest crop, used in everything from commercial and residential landscaping to parks and pastures, sports stadiums and neighborhood playgrounds. Turf, of course, is also vital to the golf industry, which contributes more than $100 billion annually to the economy.

Funding for turf research, approved in the 2018 Farm Bill, has supported a range of agronomic advances, helping lead the way toward increasingly resilient grasses — more resistant to drought, salt, heat and traffic. That federal money will be up for reauthorization this fall when the Farm Bill comes before Congress again.

It’s an apt time, in other words, to talk with lawmakers.

Beyond Beltway lobbying, though, the industry is keen to convey its message to the wider public while pushing forward with turf-related research of its own.

That work represents a continuation of initiatives that date back to the early 1920s, when the USGA began investing in golf-course sustainability. In the decades since, that work has only gained in urgency in the face of challenges that range from rising maintenance costs to a changing climate and intensifying droughts.

“It’s not accurate to say that drought and water shortages are a threat to the existence of golf itself, but they are a threat to the existence of golf in some places,” says Cole Thompson, the USGA’s director of turfgrass and environmental research. “If you accept that as true, then the question becomes, What do you do about it?”

For the governing body, water conservation has long been a focus. Its investments on that front, in the form of research, consulting and industry-wide education, have paid substantial dividends. Between 2005 and 2020, golf reduced its water use by 29 percent, two-thirds of which was directly attributable to advances in water efficiency (the other third came from course closures), according to the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America. During that same period, the GCSAA reports, golf courses in the U.S. reduced their total acreage of irrigated turf by 12 percent while dialing in their irrigation practices through smarter strategies and sophisticated tech. Along the way, USGA-funded research has helped generate more than 40 new turfgrasses that can better stand up to extreme temperatures, disease and pests. Many of these varietals can also subsist on recycled water, salt water and wastewater. Not only are these grasses less thirsty, they’re also less picky about what they drink.

News

The game has come far, but it still has ways to go.

To that end, the USGA launched what it refers to as a “15/30/45” campaign — a commitment undertaken in 2022 to invest $30 million over the next 15 years to further reduce golf’s water use by 45 percent. There are many ways to do this, some as simple as upgrading inefficient irrigation systems, others as complex as using satellite moisture readings to pinpoint the water needs of pretty much every square foot of turf.

All of these methods — and more — have been laid out in the USGA’s recently released “Water Conservation Playbook.”

A digital publication, it combines a century-plus of USGA Green Section expertise with findings from top universities as well as the insights of superintendents, architects, course owners and other industry figures, distilling a wealth of information into a blueprint for action.

As much as those plans draw on hard science, they also call for communication. Conveying the truth about the game to non-golfers is essentials. But there’s also a key message that golfers need to hear. It involves the need to adjust their expectations, which are frequently at odds with efficient water use. Not every course can be kept Augusta green. Doing so, in fact, an even be a detriment to course conditions, which can often be improved by watering less.

“Golf as a whole uses very little water when you measure it against other industries, but that’s not an excuse to think that we don’t have work to do,” Thompson says. “The other side the coin, though, is that golf can also only do so much. As we move forward, particularly in some locations, all of us are going to need to think differently about what a golf course looks like, and how we can be most efficient in maintaining it.”