Six years after tourism advocates complained of a shortage, proposals for golf courses in the Ocean State have become nearly as ubiquitous as clam cakes – especially in South County, now being hyped as so wealthy in public courses that it’s helping the state become a prime golf destination. But what about the impact of these fields of dreams on the environment, on the local floral, fauna and wildlife, on nearby streams, oceans and ponds?
That depends on whom you ask, from local environmentalists who have mixed views on the subject, to those who manage each of the state’s 50 or so courses.
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University of Rhode Island professor W. Michael Sullivan is chairman of the department of plant sciences, a self-admitted so-so golfer, and a frequent consultant on the subject.
An enthusiastic backer of a proposed $7 million, 21-hole public course on 260 acres at URI’s Kingston campus, Sullivan keeps a close eye on golf course development in the state, from the handful now under construction to those still going through the permitting, discussion and funding process.
There’s no question it’s booming, with nationally about 500 golf courses being built every year compared to a decade ago when it was about 200 to 300 annually.
”There are a great deal of opinions on it,” said Sullivan, who had just spent 14 hours on a witness stand in Vermont on the subject of grass versus trees in filtering carbon dioxide from the air.
In his view, research clearly shows that “a properly designed and professionally managed [golf course] is an enhancement to the environment,” in terms of promoting a diversity of wildlife as well as positively impacting water quality and noise and air pollution.
Also, Sullivan said, the effluent from seven three-bedroom homes “produces more pollution than an 18-hole golf course,” and golf courses don’t create an added drain on schools and pay proportionately more property taxes.
On the other side is Eugenia Marks, director for policy and publications at the Audubon Society of Rhode Island, who doesn’t cotton to golf courses from an environmental perspective, although “they’re fine” for recreational purposes.
“We take a very dim view of golf courses,” said Marks, even as an open space alternative for subdivision development. She said studies also show that a relatively low percentage of inhabitants of cluster housing developments designed around golf courses even play golf.
They “don’t provide the richness of habitat” as say a forested or natural area, Marks said. And because they’re mowed, no seed is produced. Courses are also “groomed against insects” which cuts into the daily breakfast, lunch and dinner requirements of many species of birds, and they consume a large amount of water, because of the way they’re irrigated.
“I also wonder about the saturation point” economically and socially, of how many golf courses the state really needs, Marks said. Although R.I. Audubon supports efforts made by golf courses to be environmentally “greener,” they don’t agree with the idea of using them as an antidote to developmental pressure, the lesser, say of two evils. “There are much better ways to do it.”
Peter Lund is superintendent for Rhode Island Country Club in Barrington, a luscious private 18-hole course on about 240 acres on Nayatt Point that juts pristinely into Narragansett Bay.
A third-generation superintendent (what years ago was called a greenskeeper) Lund also considers himself a conservationist, which means he often walks a precarious line between protecting the course’s natural habitat and pleasing his customers.
A key factor in a golf course’s effect on the environment depends on each specific site, Lund said, for it’s a lot different clearing a forested area to build a course than it is putting one in suburbia. “In this specific area this property is like gold,” surrounded by million dollar homes, which means if it weren’t there, there’d just be more lots with million dollar homes. “It’s the only open space in the neighborhood.”
Save The Bay Executive Director Curt Spalding, a lifelong golfer, currently leads the group’s participation in “Golf and the Environment,” along with organizations like the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the National Wildlife Federation, “Golf Digest” and Audubon International (which is not connected with R.I. Audubon.)
The group has been working actively together almost five years “trying to make golf greener” – which is the exact opposite of the vibrant and immaculate shades of finely manicured Kelly that entrance watchers of the yearly Masters Tournament in Augusta, Georgia.
In the average 18-hole golf course there’s maybe a total of 50 acres of turf, with five acres or 10 percent of that greens and tee-boxes, the part of the course that sees the most wear and tear and so requires the most management, Sullivan said.
Another 25 acres are fairways, which “generally receives about the same attention to detail as the average home,” and the remaining 15 percent are roughs and related areas that require even less maintenance than the average home lawn.
”People’s concerns are based upon perceptions,” false ones, Sullivan said, that assume golf courses use an excessive amount of harmful chemicals because they see a pesticide applicator “dressed in what appears to be a moon suit” and freak out that it’s “more toxic and more evil.”
In reality they’re dressed that way because state and federal law require them to be, although their products are similar to those used by homeowners. And 75 to 80 percent of all fertilizers sold in Rhode Island are used on home lawns, the remainder on agricultural and golf course land, even though the two are about equal in area, Sullivan said.
“A golf course is just a farm. It’s growing grass,” said Lund, adding that today’s chemicals are “not that bad” and “a lot safer” than they ever were, because unlike the DDT, chloridaneand lead arsenic of the old days, modern fertilizers and pesticides degrade quickly.
Golf courses can also be built on degraded areas, sandpits and former landfills and the like, and they provide great filtration systems, Lund said. Application systems are also much more efficient, with courses able to use effluent water and make it even cleaner than before.
Americans, Spalding said, have been programmed to want their golf courses to look “totally green all the time,” while their Scottish counterparts are more accepting of some summertime brown, a little clover in the rough. Natural amenities don’t “diminish the golfing experience one iota,” Spalding said, and proper management like providing natural plant buffers next to water areas go a long way to protecting ponds and streams.
Ultimately, Spalding said, it may be financial rather than environmental incentives that propel golf courses to increase green practices, especially with the increased desire for public and affordable golf and the reduction in disposable income that comes when the economy turns down.
“The less pesticide you put in the more money you save. We can have much cheaper golf,” Spalding said, adding that “golf isn’t about walking through a park” but about having “an experience of nature.”
