Golf, it is famously said, is a good walk spoiled. Many people argue that it is also a good environment spoiled. Despite the growth of the popularity of the sport and the proliferation of courses among new housing communities, there continues to be some major concern over the environmental impact of golf courses on the environment. There are concerns over the use of pesticides and fertilizers as well as the amount of water needed for irrigation and cultivation of greens and fairways and the amount of land used.

Some courses, however, are undertaking to maintain both the popularity of the sport and the local environments. In Southern California, where new golf courses are being built each week and outnumber the parks, course designers allocate less and less of the total area of the grounds to the golfers (and their fairways) and more to the local environment (and rogue balls). This has helped in the restoration of many endangered ecosystems and made protection of rare birds and animals a profitable enterprise. Courses are also irrigating with more affordable and environmentally responsible ‘Grey Water’ instead of potable water.

In other countries, new non-grass golf courses are being constructed to further the sport. In Saudi Arabia, where a large number of American and British ex-pats work for oil companies and have brought their love of the game with them, several golf courses have been constructed that consist of nothing more than sand covered with oil. The picture featured in this article comes from the only golf course in the world whose members have reciprocal rights with Saint Andrew’s in Scotland – Coober Pedy Opal Fields Golf Club in the outback of Australia. Where daytime temperatures are usually prohibitively hot, this course has not one blade of grass anywhere on it and most people schedule tee times for after the sun goes down. Instead of irrigating, players carry Astroturf with them for teeing off of and the oil on the greens speeds up balls in the same way shorter grass does over at Saint Andrew’s. Only the hearty play during the day though, the prime tee times are at night when players utilize glow-in-the-dark golf balls.