As long as there is enough fresh meat with stuffed wallets, waddling through the turnstiles, courses like Shadow Creek and Cascata will be able to afford whatever the cost to keep their prefab creeks running and fairways emerald green.
One thing that continues to strike me as an obvious, partial solution, is to let the bermuda go dormant on desert tracks . . . . . the amount of water used after overseeding the fairways has to be significant.
What? You mean the touristas will not accept dormant grass for their winter frolicking? Eventually, it will be that or squadoosh . . . . . unless the resort can get the patrons to cough up enough jing to cover the costs of constant fines from the local water district.
One of my homies and I just drove from Burlingame to Bishop, CA last weekend - picking up some antique cabinet for Her Redness. Mono Lake looks shrunk down and every reservoir we passed was down alarming levels - and all the weather geniuses say we are in for yet another drought winter.
I got news for everybody . . . . the shit has already hit the fan - and the wild 2017 rain we had that collapsed Oroville Dam is just a preview of an inevitable feast to famine water situation.
Notice also, our disgusting, feckless, loser politicians are still approving gigantic residential developments with both hands (since they are all paid off, but pretend it is to alleviate the "housing shortage"), so the practical water needs of golf courses will be the first to get slashed . . . . .
In other words, the effluent water running through el fako streams in Palm Desert, Rancho Mirage etc etc are not even a drop in the bucket - particularly because that water is usually on a circular pump system that does not really use much potable agua.
But since the Western U.S. is likely headed for economic collapse and water restrictions that will unravel all these ill-conceived housing and golf developments, TD is right - once the lemmings sprint for the exits, it will make the 2008 crash look like a Great Gatsby garden party . . . . .
The answer MIGHT be artificial grass golf courses. Why not? Plastic (petroleum based?) grass would be a one-time event (with regular upkeep), but except for the recycled waterscapes, ongoing irrigation costs would be extremely minimal. Drastically truncated maintenance costs might translate into a renaissance of golf being affordable again out here.
Yeah, you'd have to amortize the fako materials over a course of years, but compared to getting shellacked every month with breathtakingly expensive water, not too bad. Even if they use 100% recycled affluent water, you still have to process and pump it from treatment plants.
In other words, radical problems suggest radical solutions. It is not practical to simply let all these housing related courses go fallow - and since covid and working from home seems here to stay - the demand for recreational golf is not going away . . . . boom or no boom.
The genie long ago vacated the bottle, so we have to arrive at a sane, sustainable solution to keep the pellets flying. Certainly, putting an end to overseeding would help - dormant bermuda plays like tight fescue and rolls forever - but unless somebody figures out how to make a desalination plant economically viable and sustainable, everybody west of the Mississippi is going to find themselves stuck like a pig.