KEY POINTS:
This week's question comes from a male reader - alerted by his girlfriend, who thinks his love of golf might be incompatible with his Greenpeace membership. However, he claims the sport nurtures his green sensibilities.
He's not the first to face this quandary, because golf looks eco-friendly until you get to the greens. Living in fear of fusarium, a fungus that scars the carpet-like appearance of the grass, greenkeepers have increasingly favoured strong pesticides. Naturally, this doesn't please eco warriors who allege that the 17,000 golf courses in the US use more pesticides than anyone else, including farmers. Then there's evidence like the 1996 University of Iowa study that showed higher rates of brain and prostate cancers and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in golf-course workers than in the general population. The golf fraternity refutes charges of being major polluters, and another US study concluded in 1999 that the pesticide run-off into local watercourses was "virtually nil".
Is "virtually nil" enough? There's no standard for an "eco course", but designers are trying low-input, sustainable courses with reduced mowing (petrol mowers emit carbon), irrigation and fertility requirements, and minimal or no use of pesticides.
So cut down your golfing footprint by choosing the most naturally run course you can find. Matfenhall in Newcastle (www.matfenhall.com) is on an organic farm and has wildlife zones and nesting boxes. The world's first "free-range" eco-friendly golf course is off the coast of Croatia in Brijuni National Park. It is "mown" by animals and no pesticides are used.
The eco approach to golf, then, is about managing your expectations. The more players who demand championship smoothness mean the greater the effect on the environment and fewer innovations such as the waterless course - where the green can look a bit, well, brown. The latter is pretty revolutionary because, with golf, water is the elephant in the room, wearing a large pair of plus fours. Look at southern Spain, where hundreds of courses, each consuming the same amount of water as a town of 12,000 people, are causing a headache in more water-scarce areas.
According to Greenpeace only two out of a sample of 28 Spanish golf courses are using recycled water.
You can even green your golf bag. Eco balls decompose in water (ecogolfballs.com), and the biodegradable eco tee (www.ecogolf.com) could replace the 4.4 million golf tees made annually from trees.
Golf isn't inherently evil. In fact agronomists insist that ponds with shallow slopes and undulating greens can be used to stabilise banks and prevent erosion.
Synthetic fertilisers can be replaced with composting, and petrol products phased out. If you bear these things in mind when you choose where to play, the grass can always be greener.
Paper towel or hand dryer? Assuming a 30-second drying time versus a two-towel usage, a paper towel has twice the global warming burden of the dryer, so use the dryer. Better still, wipe your hands on your clothes.
