Although I love playing golf on a lawned golf course, I don't find this sports very environmentally friendly. While many can argue that the lawn absorbs carbon dioxide and releases oxygen, the energy consumed to pump the water to maintain the course is much worse. A regular 18-hole golf course can consume as much water as a 5000 house community! Given that the 21st century will be the century of water crisis, I think it is time to modify the game.

This golf course is called Green Golf Course, but of course it is not green at all. Matter of fact, it is all yellow, because mostly sand. In this golf course, everything is natural, the whole land is the same as what you would find in a desert with some minor arrangements maybe. Like in a regular golf club, you can rent a golf cart, golf clubs, golf balls, and as an extra, a matt with artificial turf. The players are supposed to carry this matt around with them and wherever they find the ball, they place it on this matt and hit it from there. The course will be extremely cheap, like $5 for 18-hole, because there is no maintenance involved. Carts could be an extra $5, and of course they are solar powered. Only the green around the hole could be real lawn. All the rest need not be green at all. The area is reserved for golf only. There could be trees here and there, and fountains. The ball can have a small radio emitter to locate it. Maybe as the course earns money, more additions could be made, such as dinasoars, or sand dunes, big bells, etc. Even if you don't like it, soon we may have to do this anyway. Just a heads up.
-- xkuntay, Jan 30 2009

Golf water usage http://hillcountryw....org/GolfCourse.htm
First link in Google shouldn't be lying I suppose. [xkuntay, Jan 31 2009]

First Link in Google, lying http://www.drclark.de/
Being first in google doesn't make it true... [loonquawl, Feb 02 2009]

Watch out for the sand trap!

I can't say I'm much of a fan of golf, but from what I have learned from playing it on the Wii, this would give severe penalties for those missing the green. You may want to at least add in a surrounding area of artificial turf or something.

Long drives would be cut WAY down as regular humans need that bounce to get 30+ more yards down the course.

I think this will be a tough sell, especially to all those morons who drove their Hummer to the golf course.
-- MisterQED, Jan 31 2009


UB No offense to golf! It is a great sports that requires unmatched concentration and precision. I am not telling all golf courses should be converted, but in US there is definitely an overabundance of golf courses. Most people play it for fun (and if those average golfers think they are some pros, sorry to say they are losers). I play it for fun, so I wouldn't mind playing mini golf. But mini golf bores me coz I can't hit far. I'd rather have a mini golf style course with attractions. And while your facts may apply to some well optimized courses, I know many that simply make use of cheap municipal water. i.e. link.
-- xkuntay, Jan 31 2009


Grass is not always the best plant for an area; great strides could be made by more appropriate choice of vegetation.
-- vincevincevince, Jan 31 2009


The nitrates in the effluent water used on many golf courses tend to pollute the groundwater too. Unfortunately, this water needs to be run through an expensive chloride ion exchange resin process to remove nitrates prior to human consumption.
-- quantum_flux, Jan 31 2009


Right! That one is starting to be addressed, but we're a far cry from xeriscaping. (E.g., there's the Audubon society's attempt to certify golf courses as ecologically "green" for using less than insane amounts of water and fertilizer - eco is definitely an existing trend, but that doesn't make it good, just comparatively less evil.)

UnaBubba, do you have a link to more information about one of those oiled sand type golf courses? I've never heard of that, and it does seem much closer to what the poster describes.
-- jutta, Jan 31 2009


Oiled sand? So gritty yet so greasy.
-- Texticle, Jan 31 2009


I remember playing a course in Cyprus around thirty years ago with the odd bit of scrubby grass on sand for fairway and then oiled sand for the greens. Hard-baked!

In Scotland we don't have to water our golf courses; just stop the haggi nesting in the holes.
-- james_what, Feb 01 2009


"Hagges", shirley?
-- pertinax, Feb 02 2009



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