Golf Courses Essay ⋆ Environment Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

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Golf courses are areas of land reserved for the playing of golf, which is a sport invented in Scotland in the 15th century. The rules of the game, and hence, regulation of the size and configuration of courses did not occur until the 18th and 19th centuries. Each course now consists of 18 holes, generally measured out in long thin strips between approximately 90-550 meters long. The prepared part of the hole is called the fairway and the grass is kept comparatively low to facilitate play. The hole itself is surrounded by a patch of ground known as the “green,” which is a heavily watered and maintained area made as level as possible. Golf course management can represent an intensive use of resources, particularly water resources, which may be expensive to obtain locally and for which local people may have a regular need. As golf has become an important international phenomenon, there has been increasing demand for new courses as part of tourist destinations. Land occupied by golf courses, when denied to local people, generally drive up property prices and this can be problematic for local people who cannot compete with the often internationally influenced economy. This is especially true when land resources are limited, as, for example, on island chains such as Mauritius or Hawaii, where most goods have to be imported and are therefore expensive, and the local economy has become integrated into the tourism industry. In addition, the need to maintain the courses in close to pristine condition has led in some cases to the heavy-handed treatment of flora and fauna through chemical pesticides, and this too can have implications for the wider environment.

It is not known exactly how many golf courses there are internationally and how many people who play golf. About 50 million people play golf on 25,000 courses around the globe. Some courses represent valuable habitat for local animal species, although these are more likely to be suppressed if they might adversely affect the quality of the course. In recent decades, the game’s popularity has increased greatly due to the rise in participation of people from East Asia, notably Japan and South Korea; it is anticipated that this increase will be intensified by the rise of new players in China and India, which are countries that also consider playing golf to be part of an elite, desirable, bourgeois corporate culture with an element of conspicuous consumption attached. As a result, more land is likely to be sequestered in desirable climactic zones of those countries, and further land used in tourist destination countries such as Thailand and the Philippines. Frequently, ethnic minority people inhabiting the desired land are marginalized by this change in use. Long-established golf courses may occupy valuable land and be surrounded by residential areas that have grown since their initial creation. In such cases, the use of the courses as additional housing land can outweigh the societal value of the courses. One example of municipal governments attempting to reclaim the privately owned land is in Caracas, the capital of Venezuela, where the city mayor, inspired by the policies of President Hugo Chavez, has launched an attempt to expropriate the courses and put them to public use.

Research into the impact of climate change on golf participation suggests that, depending on the location concerned, the golfing season will be lengthened or curtailed as the particular local conditions change. This will affect the demand and supply factors for existing golf courses and will have implications for future land use. This is likely to lead to increased tension between private land rights and societal need for usable land.

Bibliography:

Michael J. Hurdzan, Golf Course Architecture: Evolutions in Design, Construction, and Restoration Technology, 2nd ed. (Wiley, 2005);
Daniel Scott and Brenda Jones, “The Impact of Climate Change on Golf Participation in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA): A Case Study,” Journal of Leisure Research (v.38, No.3, Third Quarter, 2006);
R. Terman, “Naturalistic Golf Courses as Wildlife Habitat,” Landscape and Urban Planning (v.38, No.3, November 1997).