Bunkered by Mr Big

It's a sport that Scotland gave to the world but the explosion of its corporate version is devastating the landscape.

John Burnside, The Guardian, 28 July 2001

Not long ago, when I first returned to Scotland, I took a leisurely walk along the Fife coast, for old times' sake. This borderline realm of dune slacks and cliffs, of wide sandy beaches and low woods, was the heaven of my childhood, a magical place, populated by wildflowers, birds, sea creatures and a variety of exotic flotsam, washed in on the tide. Because I was brought up in industrial west Fife, a landscape of coal bings and slag, those day-trips to the East Neuk transformed my view of the world; it was here that I first learned the names of plants and insects - creeping willow, cinnabar moth, knotted wrack, lady's bedstraw, viper's bugloss - and it was here that I first came to appreciate the fact that the land around me was beautiful, complex and, to my mind, both then and now, holy. To lose this landscape - I vaguely understood it even then - would be a defining tragedy; what I did not know till much later, in my teacher, Miss Conway's, dispassionate but oddly compelling history classes, was that the history of Scotland has been, for the common people at least, a long and painful catalogue of such losses.

In a recent study of the most shameful episode in that history, Eric Richards describes the aftermath of the Highland Clearances, where men, women and children were forced off land they themselves rightfully possessed by rich landlords and trustees: "The Highlands eventually became a region of depopulation, unable to support either an old population or a modern structure. It became a pastoral satellite of the industrial economy of the south, serving its needs for industrial raw materials, such as wool and kelp as well as mutton and fish. In mid-Victorian times it was partly transmuted into a playground for the rich and, later still, into a sort of national park for the nation at large and its tourists. It signally failed to recover its population or to develop modern industry. This added to the tourist attraction exerted by the 20th- century Highlands which, naturally, heightened the piquancy of its historical fate."

Most histories of the Clearances stress their human cost - and rightfully so. Yet considerable harm was also done to the landscape and ecology, converting large areas of Scotland to a crude monoculture, first for quick profits from sheep grazing, and later for two of the principal leisure activities of the Victorian moneyed classes, grouse-shooting and deer-stalking. Later still, in spite of all evidence as to its negative environ mental impact, plantation forestry sprang up, with attractive tax incentives for outside investors, imposing non-native timber crops upon wholly unsuitable moorland. So it is that the history of the Scottish landscape, from the 17th century onwards, has been one of mismanagement, short-term thinking and brutal profiteering, usually passed off as necessary or helpful measures by the absentee landlords who owned the land, and carefully overlooked by central government, whether in London or Edinburgh.

Now, years after those idylls of childhood, my nostalgic perambulation along the Fife coast set alarm bells ringing in my mind. True, I could still take such a walk, though now, it is called The Fife Coastal Path, a clearly signposted, carefully managed and - in many places - strictly delineated tourist attraction, designed to bring in walkers and ramblers. However, much of the beauty and freedom has disappeared.

In Kingsbarns, for example, where I had been free to wander the foreshore, or climb the occasional wooded slope looking for butterflies and wildflowers, or around St Andrews Bay, where I might have stood on a rock and scanned the open water for seals or dolphins, the land has been appropriated, taken over in a kind of enclosure of the imagination, by those who have seen this area's prime development potential and would ruthlessly exploit it.

Such exploitation, as the developers would point out, is nothing new - but that day, as I headed out along the coast, its environmental price was obvious to see: dead fields, broken woods, tall cranes raised over the new luxury developments, fences, tarmac and the ugly, brutal moonscape of corporate golf. There is an irony to this new phase in Scotland's natural history, in that, since we Scots reputedly invented the game, it is our own child, in mutant form, which has come back to haunt us.

In a world where the "authentic" experience is prized above all else - no matter how contrived and packaged this authenticity may be - to play on one of the major Scottish courses is the dream of every corporate golfer, from Tokyo to Seattle. But, while this spells big money for landowners, absentee investors and corporate backers, it only adds to the environmental and social burden of a country which has seen far too much opportunism and profiteering by cynical or ill-informed outside interests.

As a Scot, I know I am supposed to love golf, in much the same way as I love tartan, porridge and bagpipe music. I also know that, while travelling, I must avoid telling people where I come from - ever since I mentioned in passing, while checking into a B&B in upstate New York, that I lived a few miles along the coast from St Andrews. I had no idea what impact this innocent remark would have on the delicate sensibilities of the sports-crazed proprietors till the following morning when, as I descended to the dining room, I was greeted by the skirl of the pipes, the distinct aroma of liquefying oats, and my host, Bob, got up in his Cameron tartan trews and a Pringle sweater, in an entirely well-meaning, but woefully miscalculated attempt to make me feel at home.

With obvious satisfaction at having a St Andrews man in the house, Bob then proceeded to grill me about recent golf news from home, (he was, of course, of Scots descent himself, as all Americans seem to be), while regaling me with amusing or uplifting stories from his side of the pond. It was some time before I could turn the conversation to baseball - happily, another of his passions - and find some relief from my embarrassment and boredom in the discussion of a proper game.

Because Bob was a very nice man, I couldn't bring myself to tell him the scandalous truth: that I am neither a golfer nor a fan. I wouldn't go as far as my friend Tom, who claims that golf isn't even a sport, because any real sport involves some element of defence. (In cricket, the point is to defend the wicket; in football, the goal; in baseball, the plate .) Tom also points out, with more justification, that no rational person - or at least, no rational person with any kind of taste - could seriously participate in a pursuit conducted by grown men in pastel-coloured sweaters and two-tone shoes, when those grown men can't even carry their own equipment, and spend a good part of their spoiled walk riding around on little buggies, for all the world like kids at the dodgems.

Still, this ancient game exists in a variety of forms, and while many of these are absurd or grotesque, it is only in its corporate guise that golf strikes me as ugly, destructive and morally unacceptable. Indeed, as a Scot with an interest in the landscape and ecology of my homeland, I become increasingly angry when I read the kind of article I found recently in Bunkered - "Scotland's only golf magazine" claiming Scotland as "The Home of Corporate Golf", and singing the praises of BP Chemicals, who, it appears, fields Scotland's leading corporate golf team.

More generally, I become even angrier when I learn that, in a county where I cannot find adequate supplies of local organically grown crops, prime farmland is being converted, with public support and private sponsorship, into further golf and leisure facilities that, even if local people could afford them, we certainly do not need. What we do need - clean water, unpolluted land and space to appreciate our unique environment - is increasingly being denied us, to make way for developments like the new facility at St Andrews Bay, where that magical landscape of my childhood is disappearing to make way for yet another luxury golf and prestige conferencing development, a development which is, in both human and environmental terms, entirely inappropriate to the area.

It is important to draw a clear distinction here between corporate golf and its poorer, inoffensive relation. We should remember that, originally, golf was a far from exclusive or ecologically invasive game. On the contrary, it was played by local people on a piece of more or less common land, which could be used for other purposes. For this reason it was, for a time, a relatively inexpensive, even democratic pursuit. These days, however, as one industry insider told me, "the game has gone from... a populist... to an affluent person's pastime". And while golf has done something to dispel its sexist image, there is still a marked preference for setting aside space and facilities for "the ladies", rather than wholly integrating them into the game, (and cases of blatant sexism still arise, like the course which actually refused a lottery grant, because one of the terms of acceptance was the provision of adequate shower and changing facilities for women).

The truth is, corporate golf - concerned almost entirely with money and exclusivity - is the very antithesis of Scotland's democratic tradition. All over the world, the corporate form of this "affluent person's pastime" is smug, tacky and self-serving - and hugely damaging to the environment. In Asia, an explosion in golf "developments" has displaced whole communities, as prime land is swallowed up by massive, environmentally absurd courses, forcing local people into slave labour, poverty and prostitution; in the United States, in places like Minnesota and Florida, it has destroyed vast areas of natural forest and wetlands, adding to local climate problems, creating water shortages or serious pollution and further reducing already scarce habitat for native flora and fauna; in Australia, studies have concluded that some loss of native wild fowl and fish species can be attributed to golf-related pollutants. Or, as one study states, quite simply: "golf courses survive only because of a diet rich in land, water, herbicides, and pesticides".

Scotland may not be Florida or Australia, but it is nevertheless under threat. No matter what the terrain, corporate golf is about the creation of an entirely artificial, and altogether impoverished environment, often in areas of real natural beauty or ecological interest.

At the same time, corporate golf - like corporate activity generally - has never been particularly fussy about the means by which it achieves its ends. In the US, golf has long been recognised as a threat to the environment; a typical Office of Public Health report, based on samples taken from a single course in Louisiana, found evidence of the following substances: Princep Caliber 90 (herbicide); ESCO Iron (Agri-Plex) (fertiliser); Dithane F-45 (fungicide); Bleach (to "burn algae off"); Scott's Fungicide VII Bentgrass Selective (herbicide); KERB 50-W (herbicide); Scott's Goosegrass-Crabgrass (herbicide); Trimel Bent (herbicide); Orthene R 75 S and 90 S (insecticide); Triumph 4E (insecticide); Sevimol 4C (insecticide); Dursban 2-5-6 (insecticide); Crusade 56 (insecticide); Surflan (herbicide); Pendimethalin (herbicide); Simazine Pre-Emerge (herbicide); MSMA - Bulgrass Formula (herbicide); IMAGE (herbicide); LESCO Three-Way Selective Herbicide; Ronstar G (herbicides); Scott's Fluid Broadleaf (herbicide).

It will be argued that the American game is more environmentally intrusive than the European, yet studies carried out closer to home raise significant doubts as to the safety of turf management regimes in the UK. The Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs' Central Science Laboratory, for example, has been examining pesticide usage on around 650 golf courses since the mid-90s. Their 1994/5 figures show that around 32,000 hectares of golf courses were treated with around 80,000 kilograms of pesticides, herbicides and fungicides. The principal herbicides used were 2,4-D/dicamba, 2,4-D/mecoprop and fluroxypyr/ mecoprop-P; the main pesticides and fungicides applied included iprodione, carbendazim, chlorothalonil, Gamma-HCH, chlorpyrifos and carbaryl. The average application rate was approximately 0.5 kg/hectare; the rate on greens, however, was often as high as 15 kg/hectare. Of the pesticides applied, carbaryl is considered moderately to very toxic; it can produce adverse effects in humans by skin contact, inhalation or ingestion. Direct contact with the skin or eyes can cause burns, while inhalation or ingestion damages the nervous and respiratory systems, resulting in nausea, stomach cramps and diarrhoea. Though the herbicides, mecoprop and mecoprop-P, have long been used in agriculture and amenity horticulture in the UK, the Danish EPA considers them "seriously damaging" to health, the environment or both, and has placed bans or severe restrictions on both. The US Institute of Medicine's study, Veterans and Agent Orange: Health Effects of Herbicides used in Vietnam (National AcademyPress, Washington DC,1993) has linked exposure to 2,4-D / mecoprop with incidences of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, and soft tissue sarcoma.

As well as presenting dangers to human health, chlorpyrifos is considered highly toxic to birds, freshwater fish, aquatic invertebrates and estuarine and marine organisms. Meanwhile, Gamma HCH (Lindane) has recently been subjected to restrictions in the UK - though the British Soil Association has called for an all-out ban, citing the Swedish environment ministry's claim that its effects on both human health and the environment are "totally unacceptable". It should also be remembered that, even where the toxic effects of such substances are finally recognised, usually because of public pressure, the tendency has been to switch to new products, tested - and proven "safe" - to exactly the same standards as those they are replacing, rather than to adopt organic practices.

Like pesticide producers and users everywhere, Golf PR would have us believe that standards have improved a great deal over the last few years: that, in most cases, turf management is safe, either because the substances used are harmless when correctly applied, or because courses are moving towards "organic" methods. Why, then, offer the following advice to golfers, as Clark Throssell, co-director of Purdue University's Turfgrass Research and Diagnostic Centre does, in spite of his claim that golf courses are "environmentally friendly": wash hands and forearms at the end of a round; wear long pants whenever the weather allows; never play golf in your bare feet; never place golf balls or tees in your mouth. Throssell also suggests players - and presumably walkers who have such limited rights of way as exist over golf courses - enquire as to what chemicals have been or are currently being applied to a course before they venture out, (local wildlife doesn't have this option, of course).

However, for the walker at least, finding out what chemicals are being used is often a difficult exercise. While most courses claim they are committed to "environmentally friendly" or "sensitive" management; in reality, they tend to use whatever does the job, and application rates vary depending on the skill or motivation of the workers applying herbicides and fertilisers, or the wisdom of course management. As Thomas Parent, President of the Soil Organics Consulting Service points out: "There is a great movement in the golf business as it relates to wildlife and habitat development. However, there are no restrictions placed on the usage of fertiliser and pesticides. There are programs such as the Audubon International which is a not-for profit environmental consulting and certifying company and should not be confused with the National Audubon Society. They have used the Audubon name to great advantage to raise public awareness.

"Their programme strongly encourages the reduction of fertiliser and pesticides yet they firmly state: 'The landowner has total control over property registered in the Audubon Co-operative Sanctuary System. All activities are voluntary and there are no requirements or restrictions placed on the property or property owner, except as they relate to the Certification process.' " Parent adds that, in his own experience of the industry, "turf managers are forced to use pesticides or lose their jobs" adding, "we have it drilled into our heads in college and by almost every pesticide and fertiliser salesperson that [the use of organic principles] is impossible."

Parent's words echo similar thinking in agriculture and in horticulture generally. The truth is that, while many workers would like to switch to organic methods, their employers prefer to remain with the toxic management paradigm that dominates our thinking about the land on every level, here and elsewhere. Where there are golf courses, he seems to say, we depend upon extraordinarily thoughtful and skilled management to protect the environment and the health of local populations.

However, there are now more than 400 golf courses in Scotland, many owned and used by interests who have no investment in the local community or environment, and this number is increasing. And these are not the native courses where golf was invented. While the whole point of the original game was that it arose from the environment, that the interest of each course depended upon the natural features, obstacles and eccentricities of a particular stretch of land, we also know that the corporate game is all about intervention - both physical and chemical - to create "perfect" turf and ideal playing times. In Fife, we already have more than 40 courses, occupying more than 2,000 hectares, and though the older courses were developed on natural dune slacks, many of the new developments, with their executive homes, hotels and conference facilities, and their heavy management styles, utterly transform the landscape.

Whatever golf authorities say, the only way for golf to become environmentally sensitive is to return to the old model, where courses arise from the natural lie of the land, minimising the need for pesticides and fertilisers, while ensuring that development does not take place in inappropriate locations. Nowadays, however, golf complexes spring up wherever it seems most profitable to build, while the developer aims to sell a "perfect" golfing experience. The irony here is that the corporate golfer, supposedly in search of the authentic Scottish golf experience, contributes only to the destruction of the landscape in which his favourite sport was created.

Meanwhile, evidence from the US suggests there is a clear link between golf courses and other invasive "developments" - and Scotland is beginning to follow this trend. In Fife, for example, just outside St Andrews - a town which noticeably lacks a green belt - the first phase of two large-scale luxury courses, with the apparently obligatory conferencing and hotel facilities, were opened last month (by September, the St Andrews Bay complex will boast two champi onship courses with what are described as "pristine fairways", as well as a 209-room hotel, a luxury spa and a conference centre with a ballroom, 80-seat auditorium, two boardrooms and nine conference rooms. The development will extend over 520 acres.) Meanwhile other recent developments throughout the land have smuggled "executive" housing estates and driving ranges on to what was once prime farmland, or local recreational resources, under the cover of "employment creation". Now, golf is a noticeably seasonal employer, with its requirement for waiters, grounds workers and other casual staff during the summer months, and so contributes relatively little to the local economy; nevertheless, the myth persists that golf is "Good for Scotland"

One thing is clear: there are too many courses in this country, and new developers arrive every year. These courses can create pollution and destroy native landscape, while providing no more than low-paid seasonal employment, as the vogue for grouse-shooting, deer-stalking and other forms of land use did before them.

The fact that large swathes of our landscape are once again being reshaped and violated to create a playground for rich outsiders should set alarm bells ringing for everyone in this supposedly autonomous region. This new trend in land use is not in the interests of the majority of Scots, or of our natural heritage. If we really have shed our feudal trappings, and become an independent country, then we require a legislature that protects the people, and the environmental diversity of Scotland, rather than allowing our already threatened dwelling place to become the "home of corporate golf". In fact, in a world where ordinary people are working, in exciting and imaginative ways, to find a humane and ecologically sound alternative to Corporateland, we can surely do better than allowing ourselves to become the servants of its favourite pastime.