Stop lashing out at golfers
Re “Golf courses told to cut water usage,” June 13
A golf course is not a “lush playground for the wealthy.” I can afford to pay $21 a week to play a round of golf with friends. It would cost more to go to a movie and eat a box of popcorn.
The call to “eliminate golf courses” because they are a “waste of space” is simply a lashing out and looking for something to blame during these trying times. There are many more baseball, football and soccer fields in our communities than golf courses. Should we eliminate them? What would be
done with that land?
If it’s anything like the trend in my community, it would be replaced by highend condos that only the wealthy could afford, and they just might use more water, collectively, than the old course. Residents could sit inside and play on social media all day.
I prefer my socializing outdoors where I walk six miles with friends, sharing stories and observing nature. Each week we usually spot the vermilion flycatcher and a wide variety of glorious fauna.
I’m all in favor of measures to cut water usage on golf courses, but let’s not cut off our nose to spite our face. John C. Wood
Pasadena
Someone tell members of the golfing public that their pastime is doomed unless they can play in dirt and weeds.
It is absurd that we subsidize a “sport” that requires a couple of hundred acres of green grass that needs millions of gallons of water to stay green, while the city has far too little parkland for its taxpaying citizens. We do this so a select few people can slowly walk around a vast expanse of greenery, with lots of space between them, and hit a ball into a hole.
Close all golf courses now and convert them into public parks with native flora and fauna. William Bergmann
Hollywood
As a family-run small business in a droughtstricken state, the La Cañada Flintridge Country Club, of which I am president, is very concerned about water use and climate change.
Southern California is the most densely populated metro area in the country, so each piece of green space is extremely important. Green spaces benefit not only golfers; they also help clean air pollution, cool the air, improve groundwater recharge, mitigate the heatisland effect and provide critical habitat areas and passageways for wildlife.
Three-quarters of all U.S. golf courses are open to the public. We see an important role to play as urbanization and climate change affect every aspect of our lives. Our golf course is fortunate in having reclaimed water for irrigation, and water reclamation on a grand scale can help mitigate the drought.
We are moving forward with climate- and wildlifefriendly initiatives, such as solar power, native plantings, habitat restoration and tree planting. Along with using less water, we see this stewardship role as the future for golf courses. Randy Dreyfuss
Los Angeles
So here I am, about to retire as I reduce my consulting activities and turn my business over to my younger colleagues, and looking forward to spending more time indulging in my favorite pastimes of golf and skiing. Mother Nature has other ideas.
Water restrictions will probably — and perhaps appropriately — turn our beautiful golf courses brown and perhaps cause some to cease operating And as we look ahead, multiple longrange forecasts predict a major snowfall reduction in the Sierra Nevada and elsewhere in the West.
I think I may have to rejuvenate my former skill of playing bridge. Michael Schneider
Laguna Beach