Golf's Green Handicap

If you thought "Caddy Shack" gave an exaggerated version of pest control, with assistant greenskeeper Bill Murray using plastic explosives on pesky gophers, consider the fact that as much as nine million pounds of pesticides are used every year on the nation's 15,700 golf courses. This overkill can translate into health problems for human beings and wildlife in surrounding areas. Nevertheless, in 1996, 442 new golf courses were built, and one-third incorporated housing, according to the National Golf Federation. "It's ironic," says Jay Feldman, executive director of the National Coalition Against the Misuse of Pesticides (NCAMP). "People move to these communities to be near the outdoors, but end up prone to off-target drift and runoff of pesticides from some of the most intensively treated land areas in the United States."

Pesticides: The Unplayable Lie

All that pretty, manicured green comes with a lot of effort and ecological cost. On average, about 6.5 pounds of pesticides are applied per acre to U.S. golf courses each year (compared to 1.5 pounds per acre to agricultural lands). In general, pesticides are applied most intensively to the tees and greens, and less to fairways and the rough. These 6.5 pounds include the herbicide 2,4-D, a possible carcinogen according to the International Agency for Research on Cancer; the fungicide chlorothalonil, which the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) considers a probable human carcinogen; and the insecticide chlorpyrifos (Dursban™), which the agency recently banned for certain home uses, saying it is "one of the leading causes of acute insecticidal poisoning incidents in the U.S."

What is sprayed on the courses may get tracked or wafted into your home. A 1996 study published in Environmental Science and Technology showed that as much as three percent of the "dislodgeable" turf residues (the portion of the herbicide that does not adhere to the turf) of the herbicides 2,4-D and dicamba that were sprayed on grass were later found in carpet dust, ready to be taken up on the hands of infants and children playing on the floor.

From 1981 to 1989, Laurie Harris and her family lived on a golf course in Colorado. Concerned about the aerial drift of pesticides from the course onto their lawn and coming through their windows, Harris convinced the course managers to "at least sometimes" notify her of a spraying so she could close her windows and bring her young children indoors.

Health: A Good Walk Spoiled

The EPA has yet to compile data on the health incidents from golf courses reported to its hotline since 1992. However, a study of golf course workers has raised a red flag for the golf industry as well as for residents in the vicinity of courses.

In 1994, Dr. Burton Kross and colleagues at the University of Iowa released a study, commissioned by the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America, of 618 of its members who died between 1970 and 1992. They found that "golf course superintendents died from cancer more often than the general public." Dr. Kross noted that "the excesses for lymphoma and cancers of the brain and prostate, along with the non-significant excesses of leukemia, is much like the pattern present in farmers and other pesticide-exposed groups." While the study does not prove the cancers were caused by pesticides, its authors urge golf course superintendents and their workers to "minimize their exposure potential to pesticides."

Environment Triple-Bogied

In 1985, 700 Atlantic brandt geese died on a New York golf course treated with diazinon. This and other bird kills led the state in 1986 to ban the use of the insecticide on golf courses and sod farms. The EPA echoed the move in 1988, with a resultant reduction in bird kills on golf courses both in New York and nationwide. Diazinon (Spectrum™) is still available for residential use.

However, pesticides including chlorpyrifos, ethoprop and fenamiphos are still killing birds and fish, as evidenced by reports in the EPA's ecological incidents database. In 1995, at a golf course near Pensacola, Florida, approximately 1,000 grackles were killed or sickened from chlorpyrifos mixed with bird food as a bait for crickets and moles. Neighbors of the Isleworth Country Club in Windemere, Florida sued the club for polluting a lake and won a $2.7 million judgment.

Eco-Links

There are several pesticide-free golf courses in the U.S., though mostly at high altitudes where pest pressures are lower. Colorado's Applewood Golf Course, owned by the Coors Brewing Company, has not used any pesticides since 1989. Coors was concerned because the water for their beer comes from the aquifer directly below the golf course.

The Resort at Squaw Creek, in California's Sierra Mountains near Lake Tahoe, has not used pesticides since it opened in 1991, following lawsuits by the Sierra Club and others concerning potential pesticide contamination of nearby wetlands. Superintendent Mike Carlson says, "We've learned to deal with a lot of things, like not always having a lush course. But we just try to educate the public that that's the way it's supposed to look. We can do as good a job, if not better, without the chemicals." Carlson is trying to change to organic fertilizer from the slow release, synthetic nitrogen fertilizer Squaw Creek currently applies. Marion Moses, M.D., president of the Pesticide Education Center in San Francisco, says that synthetic nitrogen fertilizer runoff raises levels of nutrients in water, causing excessive algae growth, which decreases the oxygen available to aquatic life. She adds, "Fertilizers put such stress on turf that you have to use more pesticides because the grass becomes more vulnerable to pests."

San Francisco has passed an ordinance that prohibits the use of the most toxic pesticides on city golf courses and parks; no pesticides will be permitted by the year 2000 (except those approved by the city's Board of Supervisors). Pesticide Watch program director Greg Small says he has received requests for copies of the ordinance "from as far away as New Zealand and South Africa."

Arnold Palmer Golf Management is managing a course in San Francisco's Presidio National Park, in partnership with the National Park Service. They chose to use no pesticides and have been pesticide-free for a year. Golf course superintendent Tom Brooks says Palmer intends to make the Presidio course a model for its other courses.

To tackle pesticides and other thorny environmental issues driving the debate, Audubon International in Selkirk, New York developed a Cooperative Sanctuary Program for Golf Courses, establishing a certification process for participants. The regulations include use of integrated pest management. Today, approximately 1,650 U.S. courses are members.

As a result, many superintendents are changing their mowing habits, choosing more climatically appropriate grasses and creating areas with tougher, native flora and fauna. However, the initiative is voluntary, and use of pesticides, including those hazardous to the very native species of wildlife the courses are trying to attract, is not prohibited. Nor does the Audubon program require participating golf courses to notify players or neighbors when pesticides will be applied.

Farms, Not Fairways

Nancy Gatewood, an organic macadamia nut and coffee grower in South Kona, Hawaii is fighting a 27-hole golf course with luxury homes planned by Japan Air Lines (JAL). She says developers plan to bulldoze as much as 60 percent of the known Native Hawaiian archaeological sites on the property. There are no other golf course developments in this community of small family farms, and Gatewood wants stronger agricultural zoning laws. "Otherwise, golf course developers can just buy up the cheap farmland, inflating its value to the point that farmers can no longer purchase or pay taxes on the land." The average lot for this JAL development will be priced at $500,000 before the house is added. Environmentalists fear that runoff from the project will pollute groundwater and a federally-protected whale and dolphin refuge offshore.

Linda Krop, senior staff attorney with the Environmental Defense Center in Santa Barbara, California, filed a case to try and stop coastal agricultural land there from being converted to a golf course. Although California law says a developer must "preserve [coastal] agricultural soils," the developer was permitted to build the course over farmland on the theory that it is "stockpiled" beneath. "Using that logic, you could build a mall on it and it would be the same thing," Krop says.

Golf tourism is of increasing concern internationally. On April 10, 1996, high water consumption for a proposed course in an arid part of Mexico prompted a citizen protest that led to the shooting death of a demonstrator. The Global Anti-Golf Movement (GAG'M), based in Malaysia, is trying to stop the purchase and development of ecologically sensitive and historically or culturally important land. On April 29, GAG'M is hosting the fifth annual "World No Golf Day."

Other problems with golf courses include the cutting down of trees to build the courses, and the use of water and fossil fuels to maintain them. Dr. Michael Hurdzan, of Hurdzan-Fry Golf Course Design in Columbus, Ohio, decries the waste of water used to produce the wall-to-wall carpet greens shown on television. "This look will fall out of favor as soon as the public says lush green is not healthy green," he predicts. Before our nation is completely covered by manicured greens, we'd do well to pause and remember the words of the great Mark Twain: "Golf--a good walk spoiled."