Drought

[Brian_Ewen]

Guys
We have all had days on a golf course where we have hacked it about , we blame everything apart from ourselves , and declare it the worst day ever spent on a golf course . ( Okay I do ) .

Yesterday I stumbled on some pics on a disc. that I had forgotten about .

They were from a course I played back in March , and looking through them 5 months later , I still have the same feelings of THE worst day I have ever spent on a golf course .

I was holidaying on the East Coast of Thailand , and playing a couple times a week , with a friendly golf society in Pattaya .

The big topic of conversation that month was drought . Thailand was / is going through the worst drought in 20 years .

It seemed some courses were coping better than others but when we left for Treasure Hills GC , we had no warning that the course was almost unplayable because of it .

The thing that struck me the most was how the drought had affected the playability of the design of the course .

The majority of holes seemed to be flanked by water hazards which of course were bone dry , and the day can pretty much be summed up by this photo .


I have never played a golf course where the biggest problem was getting the ball to stop . With very little grass on the fairways , the ball would just bounce on until something stopped it , bunker , tree , or more likely a dry water hazard .

I suppose its a bit wrong to complain of a lack of water on a golf course , considering an awfully lot of people in Thailand have a severe lack of running water in their homes , but it seems to me two types of golf course are surviving the drought .

On the Eastern Seaboard of Thailand there is around 25 courses , apart from two , they were all built during the 1990's for the booming tourist trade , and to my uneducated eye most would not look out of place in Florida .

Which is fine , if the course has money . A couple of courses are big with Japanese / Korean golfers , can charge high green fees ( for Thailand) and are then able to afford water for their courses .

I suppose it doesn't surprise me that the two older courses have coped really well and are very playable if a bit dry , water hazards are few and are mostly used at par 3's . One was built in the 1950's , the other the 1970's .

Among the other courses all built during the 1990's , most are barely playable because of the drought .

Coming from an uneducated hacker , it never ceases to amaze me , how some designers / developers never take the Country itself into the equation when building a golf course , and would rather build something that they have seen on Television .

Or is it me ? .

I would like to hear some views on this and your experiences of drought .

Regards.
Brian

[Brian_Ewen]

FEATURE-Brown is the new green for golf in parched Spain
04 Sep 2005 01:02:36 GMT

Source: Reuters

By Sonya Dowsett

MADRID, Sept 4 (Reuters) - The clipped emerald lawns of Spain's golf clubs are a lure to millions of tourists each year.

But a sharp rise in the number of thirsty golf courses has made increasing demands on dwindling water reserves in a country fighting its worst drought on record.

Spain boasts hundreds of courses, mostly concentrated in the tourist regions of the southern coast. Their number more than doubled from 91 in 1989 to 250 in 2003, according to the Royal Spanish Golf Association.

More are planned to cash in on golf's tourism potential: the sport attracts well-heeled visitors and extends the tourist season, keeping euros flowing into an industry that accounts for around 12 percent of Spain's economy.

The average golf tourist spends around 4 to 8 times more than someone on a package holiday, says Roddy Carr, former Irish international and tourism consultant at U.S. sports marketing firm IMG.

"It's less people with more money," he said. He estimated the golf tourist industry in Spain is worth over $500 million.

Spain needs big spending golf tourists more than ever as it fights off competition from cheaper, more exotic holiday destinations like Turkey and North Africa.

Developers are planning around 21 new courses per year over the next decade, according to environmentalist group Greenpeace.

This could be bad news for precious water supplies in a country where the worst drought on record has slashed crop harvests and seen over 6,000 fires rage through forests.

ARID LANDSCAPES
The average golf course consumes the same amount of water as a town of 15,000 people in a year, according to Greenpeace.

Spanish water authorities are investigating 10 of the 28 golf courses based in the Madrid region following reports they have been using drinking water to irrigate the greens. There are also concerns that courses are not using enough recycled water.

But even environmentalists concede golf has an important role to play in Spain's profitable tourist industry.

"It's nonsense to say we shouldn't have golf courses here," says Guido Schmidt of environmental group WWF. "The question is the availability of water."

Some clubs have decided to make a feature of natural arid landscapes, rather than trying to mimic the sandy, grass-covered links of eastern Scotland, the historic home of golf which evolved from a game played there during the 15th century.

One municipal golf club on the outskirts of Madrid uses no water at all to maintain its course.

Although the land at the public Quijorna club is green during three seasons of the year, in summer it dries out and the browns and yellows of the central Spanish countryside dominate.

"The only thing we do is cut the grass," says vice director Javier Guerra. "At the moment we are using absolutely no water."

The 9-hole course stretches out beneath the sierras, dotted with evergreen oak trees, on land formerly used for growing crops of chickpeas.

The club plans to start watering the greens, where the holes are, and the tees to improve the quality of the game. But even so they will use only 20 percent of the water used by an average golf course, Guerra says.

FISTFUL OF DOLLARS
On a far grander scale is the Desert Springs club, which has been hewn out of scrub and desert near Almeria, southern Spain and has hosted the Spanish Open International Championship.

The course was designed by golf champion Peter McEvoy, who led Britain and Ireland to success in the Walker Cup.

The club uses selective watering and aims to blend into the stretch of desert, beloved of "spaghetti Western" directors in the 1960s and where Clint Eastwood filmed "A Fistful of Dollars".

"Rather than watering everything, you're just watering the playing areas. You don't play solid green all the way from tee to green," said McEvoy. "It's a question of trying to design something that looks right in the landscape."

There is no reason why these innovative courses should be a rarity, said golf consultant Carr. Good design should eliminate problems with water supply, he said.

New strains of grass that thrive on salt and brackish water, selective watering and recycled water programmes can make all the difference.

"If the planning laws and regulations stipulate strong enough policy to ensure that the golf courses are to be built with environmentally-friendly ingredients, then there is no argument on the environmental issue," Carr said.

Back at Quijorna, Guerra points at the larks circling nearby. He says wild boar come out at night to feast on the acorns from the oak trees. He doesn't see why golf must be played on grass courses.

"It's like playing football: there are many grassed football pitches like Bernabeu (home of soccer team Real Madrid), but there are hundreds and hundreds of earth pitches," he said.

[Yannick Pilon]

Very interesting article.  

A recent trip to Scotland made me realize how much fun the game would be if we didn't water the courses so much.  I hope this discussion group can eventually help in educating the golfers not only on good golf design, but also on the high impacts of their heavy demands for quality green grass on every square inch of their courses.