How Asian golf courses are going green

The Asian Golfing Industry Federation held its summit last month, and one of the key topics may strike you as unusual – it was sustainability.

The idea of making the sport eco-friendly may initially seem improbable, but the trend is picking up – not just across the region, but for golf at large.

“Increasingly, people in the golf industry here all know sustainability is a necessary aspect of good practice now, albeit mixed with a degree of trepidation,” says Eric Lynge, CEO of the federation, which is also set to launch a new greens-keeping certification programme this year. “There’s an economic pressure on golf here too, so the perception is still that sustainability is expensive, or that it would result in a deterioration of playing conditions. But those objections can be overcome.”

They need to be. Golf, he concedes, has had something of an image problem, and perhaps all the more so across Asia. With few public courses – Marina Bay, for example, which opened in 2006, remains Singapore’s first and only 18-hole public course – it’s still perceived as the sport of the wealthy leisure classes, even if that elitism is fading. It’s one reason why China, back in 2004, effectively banned the building of golf courses, even if that ban has since been widely circumvented, with the number of courses tripling. But that ban was also introduced in recognition of the fact that, with a huge population and limited water supply, more golf courses are hardly what China obviously needs. Look to the US, the most course-abundant country: there they use some 476 billion gallons of water a year just to keep grass on the courses looking like green carpet.

In other Asian territories – Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan – the problem is as much one of land scarcity, and small wonder when a course takes up, on average, the equivalent of about 60 football pitches.

Certainly, in many respects the explosion of golf – by some accounts it is the world’s fastest growing sport, in terms of participation – has broadly been environmentally challenging. Critics have complained that the so-called “Augusta Effect” – the expectation that a course should, like the famed championship venues, look picture postcard smooth and verdant – hasn’t just necessitated a carefree use of water; it has also meant the use of fungicides and insecticides, chemicals that run-off into local water courses. Then, they say, there’s the loss of plant and wildlife and their habitats.

“Is there a clash of image? Yes, probably,” concedes James Hutchinson, sustainability executive for the British and International Greenkeepers Association, a leading voice in bringing change in this area. “I think we still see sustainable as a thing where greenkeepers in muddy wellies collect recycled stuff and reuse it elsewhere on the course. And in terms of golf being elitist, who can blame the golfer for wanting a super playing surface after they have paid a lot for it? But at what cost to the environment and health of others? Golf courses are changing and we have to adapt or lose out I’m afraid.”

While Lynge argues that the call for more sustainable courses doesn’t just come from the increasing number of eco-aware under-30s now playing golf – “regardless of their age, a lot of golfers here are involved in industries that already understand the importance of sustainability,” he suggests – all the same the golf world is slowly responding.

Rechargeable buggies, solar-powered clubhouses, organic fertiliser, advanced irrigation systems, the smart use of shade and natural ventilation, even the use of genetic manipulation to create “Frankenstein” grasses that stay greener, grow slower and are more tolerant to intense sunlight are among the various progressive moves internationally.