Caddyshack and Happy Gilmore have popularized a
misperception of golf as a game played by rich white guys who wear
funny clothes, bet large amounts of money, drink too much, and
regularly invent new terms of profanity. There certainly are
golfers whose sense of ecosystem management is having sufficient
Cuban cigars to play 18 holes. However, golfers potentially
represent a revenue-rich ally for environmentalists.
As
Tony Davis details in his Aug. 21 article, “Have golf’s glory
days gone by?” there have been several examples of golf gulping
gallons of precious water in the desert. However, in 2006, better
agronomy and science practices by course designers and
superintendents have lessened the flow. During golf’s
500-year history, golf courses have been the most consistently
managed large ecosystems in world history. Around the world, golf
courses are oftentimes the only large landscapes available to
birds, game and diverse flora.
From years of being an
environmentalist, serving in the Clinton administration as director
of the Bureau of Land Management and teaching at several
universities and colleges, I like to encourage new alliances. There
certainly have been conflicts between environmentalist and golfers
in the past, and undoubtedly there will be more in the future.
However, there are much greater shared values between the two
groups than there are conflicts.
Patrick
Shea
Salt Lake City, Utah
Director of Bureau of
Land Management, 1997-’99
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Golfers and greenies unite.
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