I can't believe it's not greener

The Independent, 16 September 2000

News last week that Microsoft billionaire Paul Allen has been ordered by the Washington state Department of Ecology to close down his private golf course - which has allegedly taken so much water from the nearby Sammarish River that a rare breed of salmon has died out - highlights golf’s environmental dangers.

Clint Eastwood is battling eco-groups over his plans to chop down rare Monterey pines at his co-owned Pebble Beach complex, and all over the American West, which is essentially a desert, the golf-versus-the-environment question is hotting up - especially now the Tiger Woods phenomenon has sparked another course-building boom.

Imagine, then, the game’s potential effects in the Third World.

“Tourism will always take precedence over local matters in poorer countries,” says Patricia Barnett, a director at Tourism Concern.

“Even in places like Spain, local people face water shortages while sprinklers saturate the fairways.” Barnett also points out how, in the Philippines, there is so much demand from the Japanese that local people have been thrown off perfectly fertile land to make way for golf courses.

In Thailand, golf is included in some sex-tourism packages: “Caddies cannot be male, or over 26,” says Barnett.

Tour operators and organisations, such as the British Institute for Golf Course Architects, claim that most new courses enhance the environment.

“Nobody complains when they take a rubbish tip and turn it into a golf course,” says Bill Robinson of Today’s Golfer. “Links golf courses in particular actually create environments that bring wildlife back into certain areas.”

Patricia Barnett counters: "American-style courses are built in such a way that destroys the environment. They may look natural, but hills are shifted and trees are pulled down to make them. And that green look is only managed with the help of pollutants and chemicals.”