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Comment on Very few people realise how environmentally devastating this game is.

Most courses use man made ponds as both hazards and as retention ponds so they can use that rain water.

You know what uses three times the amount of water per acre? Corn. And almonds use about ten times more water than corn. And people have only just started caring about lawns, that use two orders of magnitude more water, fertilizer, and land than golf courses.

Golf courses really aren’t that bad from an ecological point of view when compared acre per acre to other large man made structures. They’re generally pretty small when compared to other large landscaping projects at 30-80 acres. The issue is when a city has like twenty courses just for the purpose of driving up housing prices.

Would that land be better as a park? Probably, but this is the US, someone would see an unprofitable “empty” plot of land and throw million dollar houses on it.

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Rodeo@lemmy.ca ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

You know what uses three times the amount of water per acre? Corn. And almonds use about ten times more water than corn.

And we get food out of that input, unlike a golf course where you get nothing of value.

And people have only just started caring about lawns, that use two orders of magnitude more water, fertilizer, and land than golf courses.

Have you seen a golf course before? They’re literally lawns.

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- ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  You get nothing of value from golf. I don’t play either so neither do I, but this very much comes off as “stop liking things I don’t like” rather than something that is actually important.
  
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  - AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    At least in the southwestern US most of them are a moot point. The vast majority of golf courses are being redeveloped because the course went bankrupt over the last decade or so. A few are managing to stick around, but I wouldn’t be surprised if over 90% of the historical courses are gone in the next few years.
    
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    ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Such is the way of the free market.
    
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- _danny@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Most of the US corn crop goes to animal feed, so no you don’t get food from it. At least not directly. If you totaled up all of the land used by golf courses, you’d be at .1% of just the amount of land used for animal feed. And about 1% of the land used by home lawns.
  
  They’re not that bad, there are much worse enemies than golf courses in general. Again, courses that are in the middle of a city that do nothing but increase property value are terrible, but most are perfectly fine and use way less water than you think.
  
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  - zeppo@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Wtf do you think happens to those animals who eat the corn stalks?
    
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FlyingSquid@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Well I admit I haven’t seen the entirety of those courses, but based on what I’ve seen, and considering they’re surrounded by either businesses, houses or, in one case, a hospital, I don’t know where those retention ponds would be. The hazards they have absolutely wouldn’t be big enough to cover the amount of water I see sprayed on them.

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- _danny@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I have never seen a golf course next to a hospital… Maybe it’s regional, but near me, most courses have many made ponds that hold rain water and you can smell the pond water when the sprinklers come on. The ponds can hold several Olympic swimming pools worth of water.
  
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zeppo@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
You’re really comparing growing food to some entirely useless recreation activity?

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