June 17th, 2025 • By Caroline Reitmeyer
What Sustainable Golf Means for Players and the Planet
5 Minute Read
For much of golf’s modern era, the game has been associated with high resource use, including heavy irrigation, synthetic chemicals, and energy-intensive maintenance practices. These perceptions, rooted in the industry’s shift towards highly manicured and pristine turfgrass conditions, continue to shape public opinion today. As global conversations around land use, water scarcity, and climate responsibility intensify, golf is increasingly viewed as a costly luxury. But is this the only version of the game that exists? Does good golf require excessive inputs, or can the sport evolve into something more sustainable for both players and the planet?
Before diving into what sustainable golf looks like, it is important to first clarify what we mean by “sustainability” itself.
What Is Sustainability?
At Greener Golf, we define sustainable golf as the design, maintenance, and management of golf facilities that are environmentally responsible, socially inclusive, and economically sound. Its core principles include efficient water and energy use, biodiversity conservation, soil and water quality protection, reduction of chemical inputs, community engagement, and climate change resilience.
Unfortunately, sustainability and golf are often seen as tradeoffs by facility managers and golfers. Many assume that using less water, fewer chemicals, or reducing turfgrass will inevitably lead to increased maintenance challenges or lower-quality playing surfaces. However, as mentioned earlier, sustainability is about finding balance, in this instance between player expectations, fiscal responsibility, and environmental and social impact. As more courses integrate sustainable practices into their everyday maintenance, design, and operations, the golf industry is beginning to recognize that thoughtful sustainability efforts cannot only uphold but also enhance course conditions while reducing environmental impact and lowering operational costs.
What Golfers Gain from Sustainability
Sustainability in golf is not just about environmental responsibility, it can also enhance the player’s experience in tangible ways. Courses that reduce chemical inputs create cleaner environments, minimizing golfer exposure to pesticides and fertilizers while improving overall air and water quality.
These physical improvements are complemented by the mental and physical health benefits of playing golf. Spending time outdoors within natural environments has long been known to provide numerous mental health benefits such as regulating moods, reducing stress, anxiety, and depression, and improving mental fatigue and concentration. Courses allow players to be amidst various wildlife, native flora, and scenic landscapes that help to enhance mental wellbeing, while reconnecting players to the outdoors. Research from the University of Edinburgh study found that regular golf increases life expectancy and promotes both physical and mental health.
Golf Courses as Environmental Assets
Green Initiatives in the Golf Industry
Across the U.S. and globally, efforts to green the game are growing. In 2022, the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America (GCSAA) signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, pledging to advance environmental sustainability and stewardship on golf courses.
And the numbers show progress. Water use on golf courses declined by 19% from 2005 to 2020 through conservation practices like wetting agents, targeted irrigation, and turf drought tolerance. Pesticide application has become more strategic, reducing overuse and mitigating the risk of resistance in pests and weeds. And finally, courses are increasingly integrating native plants, wildlife habitats, and pollinator gardens into their layouts.
The Need for Industry-Wide Accountability
Golf is more than just a sport. With smart design and effective management, it can be a powerful tool for enhancing urban resilience, protecting biodiversity, and promoting climate action. But for the game to fully live up to that potential, the industry must evolve, shifting from isolated efforts to a coordinated, measurable, and accountable movement.
While many courses and organizations are making meaningful strides, a critical gap remains: there is no unified framework to assess sustainability across the golf industry. Without consistent tracking, performance metrics, or third-party verification, it is difficult to evaluate which practices are effective, how progress is being made, or where to set industry standards.
That is where the Greener Golf Index comes in. Developed by our team at Greener Golf, the Index is a comprehensive evaluation system designed to measure the economic, environmental, and social impacts of golf courses. It translates performance across key indicators into a clear, actionable score — helping facilities benchmark their efforts, identify areas for improvement, and align their operations with long-term sustainability goals.
If you would like to learn more about the Greener Golf Index, stay tuned for next week’s blog post, where we will break down how the framework works and how it is helping reshape the future of golf.
What Is Sustainable Golf?
Sustainability is a widely used but often loosely defined term. It has taken on different meanings across industries, disciplines, and cultural contexts, making it both versatile and ambiguous. One of the most widely accepted definitions comes from the 1987 United Nations Brundtland Commission, which defined sustainability as:
“Meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”
This definition has guided global sustainability discourse for decades, emphasizing intergenerational responsibility and long-term thinking. At its core, sustainability is about finding balance between human activity and the planet’s ability to support it.
Contrary to common assumptions, golf courses, when properly managed, can deliver real environmental benefits, even beyond the course.
Urban Cooling
One of the primary consequences of urban development is the relatively higher temperatures within cities compared to the surrounding suburban and rural areas, resulting in “urban heat islands”. Heat-islands contribute to heat-related deaths and heat-related illnesses such as general discomfort, respiratory difficulties, and heat exhaustion, with sensitive populations particularly at risk during these events.
In urban environments, golf courses contribute to cooling effects by lowering ambient temperatures through extensive turfgrass and tree cover. A study out of the University of Minnesota shows that courses can cool the surrounding area by up to 10 degrees Fahrenheit compared to surrounding residential, industrial, and main road land uses. These benefits were shown to extend up to 600 meters from the course, significantly lowering energy needs for air conditioning, sometimes by as much as 50%.
Biodiversity and Wildlife Habitat
The average 18-hole course encompasses over 23 acres of natural habitat, comprising forests, wetlands, meadows, and more than 5 acres of water features. A meta-analysis of 17 studies that measured and compared wildlife on golf courses to that of alternative land uses found that golf courses had a higher ecological value in 64% of comparative cases. Ecological value was quantified and measured using metrics such as species diversity, richness and abundance, community structure, and species reproductive/breeding success.
Golf courses also serve as corridors for wildlife, nesting sites for birds, and habitats for threatened species in urban areas. Compared to industrial or residential zones, courses are also far more supportive of pollinator species, such as bees and butterflies, due to the flora in the out-of-play areas throughout the course.
Stormwater Management and Groundwater Recharge
Golf courses are often engineered to retain and recycle water, reducing the impact of heavy rains and helping to prevent urban flooding. The turfgrass and soil structure help filter and absorb runoff, improving local water quality and recharging groundwater supplies.
Carbon Sequestration
When thoughtfully designed and managed, golf courses can sequester substantial amounts of greenhouse gases through turfgrass systems, trees, wetlands, and other vegetation. When this sequestration exceeds the course’s total greenhouse gas emissions, the property functions as a net carbon sink.