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Golf courses can’t exist without water, and nearly all golf courses rely on some amount of supplemental irrigation when Mother Nature doesn’t provide enough rain at the right times. Courses in dry regions may depend on irrigation for almost the entire year, while courses in wetter areas often still need to water regularly to bridge the gaps between rains. Many golfers in the U.S. may think water is only a problem for courses in the West, but water supplies are becoming increasingly strained and unpredictable across the country, and the politics around water use aren’t getting easier to manage anywhere. Finding ways to use less water has upsides for all types of courses in almost every location and the new USGA Water Conservation Playbook can help. How much a course should try to save and how to best do it depends on the situation, but nearly every course has opportunities to conserve water and good reasons for doing so.

Courses in Dry Areas

In areas where water is scarce or expensive, there are obvious reasons to conserve. There are plenty of golf courses in the western U.S. that spend more than a million dollars each year just on water, and the price is only going to increase. Even if courses have enough money to buy water or have access to a reliable water source like a well, they may not have any say in how much they can use. Drought, population growth and politics can all lead to restrictions on water use that golf courses have no control over. Water cost and availability represent an existential threat to a significant number of golf courses in drier parts of the country and the ability to use less and endure times of scarcity can mean the difference between staying open and closing down.

Courses in Rainy Areas

It’s a mistake to think that water conservation is only important for courses in arid regions. Places with adequate rainfall and relatively abundant water supplies still have droughts, and changing weather patterns may make droughts more common and more severe. Courses that are used to getting enough rain often don’t have drought-tolerant grasses or the water storage and irrigation infrastructure needed to comfortably withstand even a few weeks of drought without very noticeable impacts and potentially some dead grass. Finding ways to use less water makes it easier to stretch limited supplies and minimize the impact of a shortage. Growing demand for water and complex politics around water use are challenges everywhere, not just in dry places. There are plenty of courses in areas with seemingly abundant water supplies that are still facing rising costs, restrictions, and/or increasing scrutiny about how they use water.

Courses Everywhere in Between

Regardless of how much water a course has available, using more than necessary has plenty of downsides. Even if the water itself is not expensive, many of the other inputs needed to maintain irrigated turf areas almost universally are. Irrigated turf requires more mowing, which means more staff time and fuel. Irrigated turf also typically requires more fertilizer and pesticides, which can be very expensive. There are also pumping costs, irrigation system maintenance costs, and many other indirect costs associated with watering. Finding ways to reduce irrigated acreage and use less water on the acres that are irrigated helps focus scarce resources where they matter most. Using less water can also improve playing conditions. Many courses have made changes like converting to drought-tolerant grasses or eliminating winter overseeding with the goal of improving playing conditions – and they ended up using a lot less water in the process.

New technology, improved grasses and better management practices are constantly creating opportunities for golf courses to use less water without detracting from the golf experience – and potentially improving it. Whether a course needs to use less water today or not, the benefits of water conservation are there and water will not be less expensive or more available in the future. There’s no time like the present to think about using less.