Poisoned fairways

"Everybody in town thought they were voting to save the Monterey pine," Massara says. Dirty Harry, indeed. Massara calls the campaign "a fascinating exercise in celebrity worship in group dynamics."

But disingenuousness is par for the course (sorry). Golf course owners all over the country trot out the claim that their links have been certified by "Audubon International," for example -- but they do so assuredly knowing that few people know the difference between Audubon International (funded by the U.S. Golf Association as well as developers like Arnold Palmer Golf Management, Marriott Golf, PGA Tour Golf Course Properties, and the Walt Disney Company) and the National Audubon Society, which unsuccessfully sued Audubon International in 1991 for using its name.

And flying in a helicopter above the Monterey Peninsula, seeing how much the landscape is besotted with golf courses -- Eastwood even just built another one on top of a mountain -- it does seem that their Ryder's Cup runneth over. Massara argues that "a large percentage of our country is already dedicated to this sport, which a very narrow group of people can afford to pursue."

And there are environmentalists who pragmatically accept that golfers aren't going anywhere. Peter Stangel, regional director of the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, runs his organization's Wildlife Links Program, which is funded by the USGA. "It's an accepted fact that a lot of courses are out there and they're being built all the time," Stangel says, passing no judgment. Once a community makes a decision to allow a course to be built, "we provide them with the tools to minimize its impact and to protect biodiversity."

Stangel is optimistic. "There's been tremendous progress within the golf industry with regard to water conservation, recycling and reducing pesticide and fertilizer use," he says, noting that many courses have realized, if nothing else, that reducing the use of chemicals will save them money. Paul Parker, director of the independent Center for Resource Management, agrees, pointing out that 85 percent of U.S. golf courses have at least one official pesticide applicator, certified by the state, so their use is far more responsible.

"There are certainly bad eggs out there and clearly not every golf course is as conscientious as they should be," says Stangel. Though his group at the NFWF and Audubon International are constantly sneered at by fellow activists as some sort of environmental Uncle Toms, he argues that they serve an important function by being alongside club owners and not just on picket lines.

One somewhat odd proposal comes from the EPA's John Harris, the national program coordinator for Superfund redevelopment, who proposes building links on formerly contaminated Superfund sites instead of destroying previously unmarred nature. While it sounds counterintuitive, to say the least, that the solution to the environmental problems of golf courses is to build the courses on even sketchier plains, Harris says that since the lands aren't natural, no one will care if the course is "capped" with gravel and concrete and various ways to ensure that nothing seeps up or down.

"We think if you do it right these golfing uses of our sites may actually be more environmentally friendly than the old-style golf courses with their high pesticide use," Harris says, a frightening thought that pretty much says it all.

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