Golf Can Be Good For The Environment

Today is Earth Day and we're all reminded of how and why we should be more environmentally conscious of our impact on the planet. Now there is hype and there is fact about what is truly good for the environment, so these are a few ways we can be good earth citizens while on the golf course:

Okay action: Ride an electric cart.
Better action: Walk with your clubs in a Bag Boy Express 3 Wheel Cart.
(We have plenty of them available for sale, with Free Shipping).

Okay action: Recycle your plastic water bottles when you leave the course.
Better action: Get a metal, lined water bottle and fill it as you go along. (Bottled water is rarely better than tap water, especially from the Great Lakes).

Other Tips:

--Repair your divots.
--Replace your divots.
--Stay on the cart paths.
--Car pool to league events; it only takes a phone call.
--Trade your clubs in before they become worthless.
--Keep headcovers on your woods during the round so they maintain some value.
--Don't litter; trash on the course or along the cart paths is low life.
--Keep your spikes clean and in good shape; the greens will thank you.
--Don't buy gear, clothing or accessories you won't use or don't need.

These tips are good for the game, good for the environment and good for the golfer.

The cover story in the February 15 issue of GolfWorld featured the new Robert Trent Jones, Jr course near Tacoma, Washington, Chambers Bay. The course opened only a year ago and will be hosting the U.S. Open in 2015.

Chambers Bay/Seattle Times Photo

Chambers Bay is a municipal golf course that cost $20 million to build over an old gravel mine near Puget Sound. A set of train tracks runs parallel to several holes. It is a fabulous use of land that was too important to abandon and probably too expensive to develop for housing. Every element of the course is man-made, yet the links design, use of natural plantings, hardy fescue turf for fairways, rough and greens, and Puget Sound in the background give Chambers Bay the same kind of look and feel as St. Andrews Course in Scotland.

Like Harborside International here in Chicago, Chambers Bay relies on wind for challenging golfers. Both courses are built on industrial property near water where wind is a factor every day. Both are links style, sans trees, and cost substantially more than your typical munie golf course: $75 to $200 per round.

However, unlike Harborside where you have to use a cart, Chambers Bays offers only pull carts or caddies. That's right. NO CARTS. No cart paths. Chambers Bay is a walking only facility. That $200 round includes a caddie, which is the best way to play golf in my opinion.

I'd love to get good enough to play Chambers Bay before it hosts the U.S. Open. I hope it does really well and that walking becomes the new trend in course design. Golf can be good for the environment when it shows up like the new Chambers Bay course. Congratulations, Tacoma Washington and Robert Trent Jones, Jr.

Note: Chambers Bay was certified on August 14, 2007 by Audubon International as a Silver Signature Sanctuary, the first golf course in the state of Washington and in the Pacific Northwest to receive this designation.

I recently attended a program called The Evolving Calumet, which featured a moving history of the Calumet region of Chicago. This region comprises 4800 acres of open land, three lakes, and 2000 acres of abandoned industrial wasteland left from the dismantling of the steel mills that once filled this southeast corridor between Chicago and Indiana.

Northern evergreen forests, eastern deciduous woods and Midwest prairies all meet at this natural wetland area created by the last glacier that also formed Lake Michigan 12,000 years ago. In the 1880's the steel industry arrived and dramatically reshaped the landscape, capitalizing on the Calumet River's three arms extending into Lake Michigan and the Cal-Sag channel.

In the 25 years that the last steel mill was shuttered the region has undergone a natural renaissance. The marshes and lakes now support species that disappeared 100 years ago. There is a bald eagle pair nesting in the region and a moratorium on all landfill and incinerator construction was made permanent.

In 1995 the Chicago Port Authority opened Harborside International, a two course (36 hole) facility complete with practice range, golf school and club house amenities. Harborside was built over a 450 acre landfill that caps the north end of Lake Calumet. Both courses are links style, beautifully designed (if you like links courses) and expensive (over $75 per round, cart required). As of 2007, Harborside has become the primary revenue generator for the Port Authority, which wants to add another 18 holes.

The problem? This next course would not be improving an old landfill or a brownfield, but would likely require filling in one of the marshes nearby. Another exclusive, expensive golf course that does not improve any of the man-made wasteland, does not add jobs to a region that has suffered economically worse than any other area in Chicago, and reduces the natural wetlands seems like a bad idea all around.

I'll be paying attention to this development, as I need to know more to determine if this is as bad an idea as it appears.