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What You Should Know
About Golf Courses but Don’t
Celebrate National Golf Month in August
The next time you decide to play hooky from work and go golfing, don’t feel guilty—you’re actually supporting the environment.
“Golf courses today provide a lot more than just recreational value,” says Den Gardner, executive director of Project EverGreen. “In fact, the green space golf courses provide not only helps to beautify a cityscape, it actually helps keep it cooler and cleaner.”
As you might expect, Gardner’s organization, Project EverGreen, is an advocate for the green industry. But, as it turns out, there’s a lot of research from the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America (GCSAA) and the Environmental Institute for Golf (EIFG) to back up what he says. For example:
Cooling in warm weather. Typical courses have been shown to have average temperatures 5 to 7 degrees cooler than residential areas and 7 to 15 degrees cooler than urban, downtown settings.
Cleaning the air. It has been estimated that the turf, trees and shrubs on golf courses nationwide combine to remove 13 million tons of dust from the air every year.
Generating oxygen. The photosynthesis provided by a typical 18-hole golf course produces enough oxygen to support 4,000 to 7,000 people.
Protecting ground water. The thick, healthy turf on a golf fairway provides a living filter to help remove pollutants and keep ground water supplies clean.
“In fact,” Gardner says, “Golf course superintendents are at the forefront of testing and applying new methods of conserving water ranging from high-efficiency irrigation systems to new turf varieties that require less moisture—all of which can carry over into improved products for homeowners.”
For more information on the benefits of green spaces—from golf courses to parks to home landscaping—access www.gcsaa.org, www.eifg.org