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The most comprehensive study ever done on courses’ environmental impact reveals some noteworthy findings
As a golfer, you understand how it feels to leave the first set of footprints in the morning dew. During rounds, you notice hawks circling old oak trees, the silent flutter of butterflies on blooming plants, the soothing sound of chirping crickets on late-autumn afternoons, or squirrels hustling into adjacent woods.
Each round of golf is special in its own way, but how would you quantify the benefits of this environment to its surrounding community? How do you assign a value to green space? What makes a course beneficial to golfers and nongolfers alike?
That is the scientific purpose of Natural Capital Golf, a first-of-its-kind research project supported by the USGA and led by researchers at Michigan State University and the University of Minnesota. Taking tools used by urban planners and adding green space – including golf courses – to the mix, scientists have worked to quantify the “ecosystem services” provided by various forms of land use. What they discovered is that golf courses offer important benefits, ranging from recreation to flood mitigation, nutrient absorption, pollinator and wildlife habitats, to temperature cooling zones.
“The science is sound,” said Dr. Cole Thompson, the director of the USGA’s Turfgrass and Environmental Research Program. “The models the investigators are using are used globally in community planning. They’ve just adapted them to include golf courses as landscapes in urban areas, and they can now compare golf courses to other land uses.”
Launched in 2017, this research began partly in response to changes in global population demographics. Michigan State’s Dr. Brian Horgan noted that an estimated 70 percent of the world’s population is expected to move into city centers by 2050.
“We know that green space is going to be challenged in these cities, and golf courses represent a large percentage of urban green space,” said Horgan, chairman of MSU’s Department of Plant, Soil and Microbial Sciences. “Irrespective of whether an individual plays golf, we wondered if they receive a value by having that green space available to the surrounding area.”
With some 14,200 golf courses in the United States totaling nearly 2.3 million acres of green space, researchers recognized the importance of measuring the ecosystem value courses provide.
“We have taken the role of green space for granted, but there is more evidence that human well-being and human health, and certainly economic value, benefit from exposure to green space,” said Dr. Eric Lonsdorf, Natural Capital Project program director at the University of Minnesota’s Institute on the Environment.
“If we can understand and quantify green infrastructure benefits, then we can use our knowledge in a planning setting and actively incorporate it,” added Lonsdorf.
Initially, the research explored the ecosystem services of 135 golf courses in greater Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minn. Regional land uses ranged from parks and farmland to residential and industrial areas.
The research showed that while natural areas and parks produced less nitrogen and phosphorus than golf courses (no surprise, since parks are not typically fertilized), courses exported fewer nutrients than neighborhoods.
“With an average of 150 acres, golf courses have a lot more space for nutrients to get reabsorbed back into the system, while most homes are not very far from impervious surfaces, such as sidewalks and streets, where residential fertilizers can move from the yard into a drain,” said Lonsdorf.
While most golfers aren’t scientists, they know from experience that the contiguous nature of a golf course contributes to ecosystem value. Golfers often see and enjoy wildlife living on and moving through the playing surfaces.
“The USGA has invested heavily in environmental research since the 1990s to learn how much and what type of wildlife is present on a golf course, and how course management practices affect wildlife,” said Thompson.
More golf course superintendents are also growing pollinator gardens on courses and even maintaining on-site beehives to encourage pollination throughout the property.
“People don’t know where their tomatoes get pollinated,” said Horgan. “It might be hard for the public to see how having active pollinators on a golf course benefits them, but we know these courses are providing space for pollinators that service the local community.”
Another valuable ecosystem service provided by golf courses: temperature cooling around urban heat islands, where streets, sidewalks and buildings trap heat and increase temperatures. When plants grow, they transpire and cool the air around them. Those same plants, on golf courses or anywhere, can also help absorb carbon from carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that contributes to elevated temperatures. Both the trees and grasses on a course aid in that process.
“Most people don’t realize that the root system of grass is very fibrous and immense,” said Thompson. “We know from other research that a golf course fairway will typically store about a metric ton of carbon per acre per year.”
And while nongolfers may not immediately recognize the benefits provided by courses in their communities, the researchers agree that public perception could change if those courses were viewed as green space, just like parks.
“A person driving by a golf course might think of many other ways that land could be used, but what they don’t understand is there are tangible and intangible ecosystem services they are receiving from that course,” said Horgan. “I would even argue that a community that’s subsidizing a public golf facility might be spending the best money they can spend, because they are preserving green space as well as access to the services the community receives from it.”
The Natural Capital Project plans to expand its scope in golf research beyond Minnesota and analyze ecosystem services in Atlanta, Dallas, Detroit, Phoenix, Philadelphia and the San Francisco Bay Area. Courses in these cities will provide greater understanding of the values of natural services in different geographic climates, while providing city and urban planners with more data-driven reasons to incorporate or conserve green space.
The project has also examined the traditional way in which golf is played on an 18-hole course, exploring options for reduced-sized venues. With more flexible course routings, golfers could play for a set time period rather than a defined number of holes.
“Maybe there are new ways to have the golf experience in a smaller footprint while using the green space in different ways to benefit the community,” said Lonsdorf. “I think we can agree that green space and green infrastructure provide a lot of benefits.”
Because of the study, land managers now have more tools to work with and more data supporting the positive environmental impact offered by golf courses to their surrounding communities.
Whether it’s appreciating a few deer walking along a tree line, relishing the challenge of a daunting approach shot, or witnessing how a properly managed course can absorb heavy rainfall in flood-prone communities, golfers know what their courses mean to them. Now, municipal decision-makers may also see more value in these spaces well beyond the game that is played there.
“This project helps the public appreciate that their city administrators are investing in golf courses as green space not just as an economic resource, but as something that’s improving their quality of life,” Thompson said.
At the end of the day, what, exactly, is a golf course? It’s much more than a place to play golf – and that is good news for everyone.
Lisa D. Mickey is a Florida-based freelance writer whose work has appeared in Golf Journal and USGA websites.
