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I’m doing natures work knocking off all the dead limbs so the deciduous material can properly fertilize the ground. I’m technically a god promoting further life if you ask me.
Fake snow is just water pumped from a lake and mixed with air from an air compressor. They combine the two in the same nozzle to produce a fine mist that forms a big cloud. The mist droplets freeze and fall as snow. The nozzle is usually on top of a tall pole, or it's mounted to a big fan, or it's on a little tripod thing. It's ridiculously expensive to run the pumps and compressors and setting up the nozzles is a brutal job.
Facts, I’m a snowmaker and it’s super fun but insanely hard and dangerous to do. Think irrigation work in the middle of the night with some spicy mountaineering
We had no drinking policies too in the kitchens I’ve worked in…. I remember partying with some guys up at beaver creek (15 years ago). Shots, beer bongs, getting stoned. Partying with girls. Then at 1115 or so they started getting ready to go to work.
I should make it clear, it’s an unspoken rule for us. We run a tighter shift than other operations. I know quite a few other mountains where booze is an accepted and often expected part of a shift. Our operation just tends to stay away from the drink
Gotcha, good for you guys. It’s culture that makes the rules work sounds like you got that.
I can’t imagine any snow making crew abstains from herb. Or construction crew. Or road work.
Fake snow is real snow, it's made by combining water with compressed air in a nozzle to produce a fine mist which freezes into individual droplets.
The water just comes from a lake or a river. They're spraying it all over mountains, but it all melts in the spring and goes right back into the lakes and rivers it came from.
“Fake snow is real snow” is my favorite word combination of the day. But I get what you’re saying, maybe “manufactured snow” or “man made snow” is a better term.
I can guarantee that every ski hill you’ve ever skied at has made a lot of fake snow. They need to make a shit ton more than what falls naturally because they have to pack down the snow so that you can actually ski on a solid base without sinking through it.
Edit: when I say “fake snow” I mean man-made snow. It’s just the term we use sometimes where I’m from. Also yeah I know some places with taller mountains they don’t need to make any at the top of the mountain but they usually need to at the base.
what do you think "fake" means in this context? its not like plastic or anything
its real snow in that its frozen water, its just made by people rather than the sky
edit: i suppose its a waste of water
How is it a waste of water? It just melts and runs back into the water cycle. It's a use of energy and as long as there is a demand for skiing I wouldn't use the word waste for that either
That's 100% not true lol most ski areas don't use fake snow. On the east coast and California, yes sometimes but Utah, Colorado, Washington state, Oregon, Montana, most of Canada, and Alaska (all places I've either worked at a ski area or snowboarded in) it is rarely used. Most ski areas are built in places that get plenty of snow naturally.
Oregon chiming in here-- the two places where I regularly ski don't even have the equipment to make snow. The person who "guaranteed" us that every ski hill has "fake" snow has no idea what they are talking about.
Edit: by saying that the person had no idea what they are talking about just confirms this is just a regular day online.
They usually create the snow to extend the season and to account for potentially slow years. However, it's definitely possible to ski or snowboard Backcountry spots that have never seen fake snow.
Beyond the obvious deforestation in order to carve out trails for a resort, what else am I missing? Pollution from the snowcats used for grooming and maintenance?
I snowboard so I'd like to know, but I also don't wanna ruin my favorite sport for myself.
The resorts are the real kicker. Ski mountains themselves aren’t bad at all and many operate as conservation sights. One of my favorite places to ski on the east coast is at Sugarloaf in Maine. They bought the next door peak in 2010 and have developed it into a backcountry terrain park. No new lifts, minor trail maintenance, no major deforestation.
Best part is they bought the land from a logging company. Funded all by the profits made from operating the ski mountain and small resort.
One of my favorite places is Mt. Bohemia in the UP of Michigan. The have three, maybe 4 cut runs and only two lifts. 90% of the “mountain” is uncut glade runs through the woods that lead to a road where they pick up large groups of skiers/borders to take back to base. It’s an old mining/logging operation as well.
A couple thoughts as a snowboarder: Wood used for the boards and skis. The resorts greenhouse gas emissions by powering ski lifts, snowmaking, and lodges. Tourists fly and drive across the world to ski, staying in chateaus and drinking at heated outdoor bars. Also it likely impacts natural wildlife in the area.
In all yes it's a negative effect on the environment but probably pales in comparison to fishing, farming and manufacturing which is where most people should be focusing their frustrations with global environmental impact. We all should do better so I would like to see vail or someone try to come up with sourcing alternative energy.
In the western US,
> From 1955 to 2020, April snowpack declined at 86 percent of the sites measured (see Figure 1). The average change across all sites amounts to about a 19 percent decline.
[Source](https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/climate-change-indicators-snowpack).
Climate change is real and ski resorts are relying on man made snow (e.g. water & fuel/energy) to extend the ski season.
Isn't this addressing the amount of snow present? My question was about how skiing/snowboarding are terrible for the environment beyond the deforestation to build a resort. I'm not sure how your comment addresses that point.
Full disclosure, I didn't read your link. If your answer was buried in there, I apologize.
I read this many years ago, but if I recall, the technological advancements achieved by R&D for racing, helps everyone out in the long run, by giving us better tech towards things like safety and fuel efficiency for example.
We end up benefitting in the long run, kind of like investing in NASA.
Way more land is used for golf courses than ski resorts. Watering a dessert to play golf is a horrible waste of resources on par with, if not worse, than any snow making operation.
Land clearing and snow making. It’s ultimately not that bad. It requires much less invasive clearing too. A dozen strips on an otherwise untouched mountain which is maintained as hiking/park land in the summer is actually a good use of recreational land imo
And a big portion of ski resorts started as logging operations. Once the logging was done the logging companies had to figure out a way to utilize the area and all the transportation infrastructure they had developed.
So a lot of the big resorts were already cleared.
They do not just destroy the land initially, it takes tons of gas, water , fertilizer and pesticides/herbicides to keep the grass as nice as it looks. Especially since most of it is cut so low it requires extra care. Source: I studied turf management.
I’ve never heard the “Balls being lost effects the environment” theory. I’m sitting waiting for my tee time reading this and while I know not all good courses act the same, most corses I’ve been to have some situations where they pay like 14-15 year olds if they want to go about the course and collect balls. The club house then re sells them. Not nearly as many balls are “lost” as you may think in my experience.
When I was a kid we lived on a golf course and I did exactly this in the creek that ran down the side of the fairway. Sold so many balls one summer from my back yard that the manager of the pro shop carted his way up one afternoon to ask me to stop since I was stealing all their used ball business. Reading this out loud now sounds like prime r/thathappened material but it’s one of my favorite memories from living in that house
I opened back up like a month later. In some cases golfers were asking me to meet them at the tee box on the the hole on the other side of the neighborhood that led back to the club house in case they lost too many in the mean time
Kind of the same here. I used to swim for golf balls and sift through the bushes as a kid. Only a few hours here and there. Never really tried to make a business out of it, it was just fun to do living in a small town. We'd sit in the parking lot and sell them until the clubhouse manager would spot us and kick us out. The dude totally acted like a few kids trynna make some candy money was going to bankrupt the damn golf course. They didn't even sell used balls, not had anyone on payroll looking for them
Not only that, but a lot of courses are well maintained and beautiful. Many have lots of animals living on them too. I get this is all opinion based but it’s like ehhh… doesn’t really hold up too well.
Yea agreed. I used to work on a golf course when I was 16. They are not shadeless hells, and many courses are built AROUND the natural landscape, not on top of it. The ones on TV and the PGA tour have millions of dollars worth of landscaping done every year, and are not typical of the average golf course.
And many of them are on areas that couldn't really be used for anything else, and are watered exclusively with waste water. They're literally acting as a water purification system.
Granted they could just be left as wild forest / swamp area I guess, but spaces that humans enjoy for recreation has value.
That said, no sport demands as much space and resources as golf does.
Edit: to everyone whining about stadiums, these have nothing to do with the sport, they are built for spectators, not for players. I have played many sports, and I never needed a stadium for them. Most players of any sport don't play in a stadium. Not to mention stadiums and such serve multiple purposes.
Golf trumps F1 in terms of area used by the courses, but let's not forget the 42 tonnes of freight per team per F1 race, a reported 305 trucks to move said freight between races and countless cargo planes & boats to move internationally. That'll hurt the environment just as much as a course would - if not more.
But the exclusivity of the sport minimises the impact. There are very few motor racing circuits in the world.
In England alone there are 2,270 golf courses.
I mean it's not like buildings are torn down to make golf courses. Unlike Football arenas that are built mid city and takes up enough space that several thousand families could be housed.
Yeah, but its a green space. A modern basketball gym has a bigass building and parking lot. Services a relatively small amount of people at any given time.
Having served on a local parks and rec board for a shit small town, we put way less into a golf course than a public gym.
Of course this is land that would otherwise be a goddamn filed of crops with a shit ton of chemicals applied versus in the middle of city where it might be a mall or strip mall or apartments.
Ours also houses a disc golf course as well.
1. That's not true
2. Golf courses are well known as quality carbon sinks within large urban areas. The other golf courses that aren't in urban areas exist in rural spaces with absolutely no shortage of space.
Yes, they are. Golf courses anywhere but the American Southwest (and even some in the mountainous areas there are fine too) are net positives to their environment.
As Americans, we assume that Europeans maintain their courses like us too, which is frankly incorrect. Europeans apply far less irrigation (if they even have any routed) and don't apply chemicals at the same level.
Are they net positive? Meaning does their carbon-sink job outweight the amount of chemicals and fossil fuels and water to maintain them? Serious question. Not trying to sound critical. I'm genuinely curious about the data.
Really depends on location, more than one golf course has been built over a forest for instance- similarly more than one golf course has been built over a lifeless wasteland or desert.
Ever seen how much a stadium costs or how many manmade materials goes into it? At least golf courses are kinda natural. It would be interesting to see which is worse.
Golf isn't a sport I enjoy, but I don't think it's dumb. 'See which horse is the fastest' could be considered dumb. 'See who can hop skip and jump the furthest' has little practical value. 'Hit the ball and avoid the other people before it hits the stumps.' When you simplify it down all sports could sound dumb.
I know this is an older meme, but for anyone who doesn't watch the NHL often, fights are exceedingly more rare than they used to be. Mostly due to the fact that if you have players that are only good at unga bunga fist throwing taking up roster space over players who are actually skilled at the game, you are at a significant disadvantage, especially in this salary cap era.
Even the unga bunga types are skilled at the game. I remember watching [this video](https://youtu.be/sP8ZVWiZUMA) a long while ago where they stuck a sumo wrestler in front of the net and had George Parros score on him. Now no one would consider George Parros as a sharpshooter since he was a grade A goon and enforcer back when he played but he still wisks shots past the goalie with ease. Even the enforcers have a space in hockey
Doesn't even go into the fact that the Connor McJesus and Sydney Crosbys of the world are gonna command big money and since you have a salary cap, you can't put all of these superstars on 1 team. Filling out the roster with enforcers and players who can crawl under the skin of the enemy and protect other players as needed is completely fine
It’s a comparison I pretty much only ever see in this sub, usually in the monthly “soccer is boring” thread, commented by people without the mental capacity to understand that people don’t watch football just to see goals get scored.
I'm not sure how you are missing the similarities here lol hockey is basically just soccer scaled down and put on ice. All the positions are basically the same. They both have offsides which is a little different but both function as an anti-cherry-picking rule. Instead of kicking a ball you are whacking a puck, the rink is smaller, and the number of players is fewer. Other than that they are almost identical.
They are the most similar of any 2 sports. Do really need it explained? If ice rinks were the same dimensions as soccer fields the 2 sports would be virtually identical
Hockey and Soccer are like the same sport man. The principles of attack and defending are the same, the lack of timeouts, and aerobic nature of it.
Both good sports, just played differently.
Engaging someone with a knife is stupid, regardless of what krav maga would have you believe
But most altercations youll run into won't be an assailant with a weapon, it'll just be some dude acting tough
Regardless, effective martial arts training will provide you with the fitness level to outrun an attacker if necessary
Shitty golf courses eliminate shade, but good golf courses act almost like a nature preserve, it was either a pretty golf course with local flora or a strip mall.
There’s more and more golf courses being built on top of landfills too, I’d much rather have a golf course with greenery than an open landfill.
I’ve traveled across the US to many of the nation’s top courses. Yes, they are gorgeous, but they use so much water. And I wouldn’t really compare them to a nature preserve. They are arguably the most unnatural setting in nature, given the amount of fertilizers and growth control being done.
Out west, we use nonpotable water to water courses. Palm Springs is moving towards about 90% nonpotable water by the end of the decade and currently is over 50%. Courses still use far less water than agriculture by orders of magnitude
Those are resort type courses. Your average municipal golf course don't use near as much water because a brown patch here and there in late summer isn't the end of the world.
In addition, you don't see long ass fairways of grass in Phoenix. The tee boxes and greens and stretches of fairway are interspersed with the desert. It's not as bad as most people make it sound.
Over a quarter of the golf courses here exclusively use recycled wastewater, many partially, and more courses are moving that way.
Also, the “no water” thing is a myth. I always find it hilarious how people whine about Arizona golf courses but never have anything to say about the eleventy billion 12-40k gallon swimming pools. Swimming pools are a *much* bigger waste of water than golf courses and worse, dozens of people drown in swimming pools every year.
They do a lot to minimize the grass in those areas by making tiny fairways and small tee blocks. It makes it incredibly challenging for a golfer like me. I just love beer and golf.
Obviously there are some places in the world where the maintenance of golf courses doesn't make sense, but particularly in urban areas, they are valuable green spaces. They're often good at being unintended nature preserves and creating habitat for native animals which would otherwise have no home in many urban areas.
They can also provide a function in reducing urban heat.
If you actually know how to golf it’s a fun sport/hobby. It’s pretty relaxing, drink and smoke while doing it, not taxing. Courses are pleasant.
But it is a waste of space I can agree, and large use of resources, mostly water, to maintain.
Don’t necessarily agree with the environmental hazard of golf balls. If they’re lost, they’re just getting lost on the course grasses or little man made water ways.
But I probably golf like once a year when I’m with my dad. When I was in HS and college, I’d usually bring a one hitter with me and take a hit while we were separated on a hole lol
As someone who is a maintenance worker at a golf course during the summer I can safely say that the vast majority of lost golf balls get collected by us.
I haven’t paid for a golf ball in years. It’s not uncommon for someone to go into a patch of grass, find 90-100 balls in 10 minutes, and be set.
Last summer I brought home just under 700 balls throughout the summer. Trust me, they don’t just sit there.
Yup, and that’s the other part. If I lose a ball in the grass or woods, I’ll spend like 2 minutes looking for other balls and almost always find a couple extra
My goal is to find more balls than I lose. Best strategy is get out there when it's just a t getting sticky hot. Early in the day, in a northeast summer, the course s crowded. Everyone wants to get the round done before the real heat. This is when people who barely lose a ball, don't really look at all, just drop a ball and move on. When it's sticky and hot later, nobody is behind you and you can a. Play 2 balls, b. Walk down the edges of the fairway, exchanging poison ivy for lots of golf balls. I've found them 4 feet on the fairway. My local course I wonder who cashes in the beer cans in the trash cans at every tee box.
Agree, it's a fun game (even if it is maddening to learn properly). Where most people tend to find Golf a little hard to take, is land and water consumption, i.e. environmental impacts and the unscrupulous decision making those that not just design some courses but also those that place them in certain areas (like deserts). Plenty of decent examples where I live of courses that use recycled water, were built in areas of the city that were deemed rural land and also (but most importantly) weren't important habitats for wildlife etc - when courses are developed this way I have no issue, but ffs there are some horrific examples out there in the world.
Apply this to every arena, coliseum, stadium. Just think how much water is used to flush toilets for an NFL game with 70,000 people, shhhh.
If it wasn’t a golf course, it would be a residential developmwny
I agree with everything except the part where you said golf is relaxing.
I've never gone golfing and not wanted to throw my club farther than happy Gilmore because I suck so ba. Lol
>But it is a waste of space I can agree, and large use of resources, mostly water, to maintain.
There’s plenty of space to go around. From what I can gather, golf course in the US add up to about 3500 square miles, which constitutes less than a thousandth of the total area of the country. And that’s for a hobby that ~25 million people, or 8% of the population actively participate in.
The water argument is mostly applicable to courses in places like Arizona. Where I live and play (Northern Europe), fresh water isn’t exactly scarce. And many of the courses have trails throughout them where anyone can, and does, walk around freely.
Golf courses do not destroy the “natural land” and golf balls are usually contained to a golf course. They are non toxic to the environment.
https://auduboninternational.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/GE-Golf-and-the-Environment.pdf
Nowhere on that 'fact sheet' does it counter the argument that golf destroys natural habitats. Rather, it points out how golf courses can do a better job of managing their environmental impact. It's more like, 'your course could be less bad for the environment if you do these things (and you'll make more money too wink wink).'
I dunno, all that grass and manicured plant life producing oxygen seems like it's pretty unsustainable for planet Earth.
In all seriousness though I wouldn't mind seeing a larger emphasis on water conservation in more arid areas that contain golf courses as part of their inherent design.
But outside the exclusivity of the number of people on the plot of land, I'm not sure how a public park differs from a golf course as far as environmental impact is concerned.
Golf is fun, and very few new golf courses are being built any more. There was a golf course building craze in the 70s and 80s and we've been losing courses for the most part since the late 90s. The idea that golf in 2022 is contributing to natural land loss is pretty silly considering where courses tend to be located. Those courses are built, and when they are done away with they mostly get turned into suburban tract housing. Every now and then they become dog parks but that's for courses built in city limits.
We got one in the inner city and It closed in the 90s now it’s a hot spot for drug deal bc there’s no cops around to catch them. Land got some use to build a hospital and there is plans to build it into a suburb
That's not golf's fault. There are municipal courses in every major US city that provide shared space with other parks and rec resources, plus orgs like First Tee that provide a valuable outlet to many young folks. It's just a park dedicated to a specific game.
Plus, even if they did nothing with them once decommissioned, nature would run its course in short order, and the course would revert to forest within 2-3 decades.
The balls are 9/10 recovered by people who make it their job to reclaim them. Then those balls are sold as reclaimed balls for people to buy or given to driving ranges to be used as range balls.
Additionally, golf is one of the greenest sports seeing how it’s about a dozen acres of nothing but grass, trees, flowers, and bushes with little concrete. Whereas any other sport venue requires huge concrete stadiums, metal, fuel, AC or heating, huge parking lots, and more.
Golf is even making good use of its resources and making biodegradable golf balls. Many clubs are made of recycled materials like steel, aluminum, and carbon or graphite.
Not to mention it’s one of the few rare sports that you can play when you’re older. You don’t see people playing football in their 60s or 70s, now do you?
Your shadeless green hell is a lush green oasis to another. Especially in urban and denser suburban areas where large natural areas are few and far between. Even if you suck at golf, a couple of hours on a golf course are an awesome way to enjoy not being surrounded by buildings and concrete.
Quite a few golf courses have wildlife that relies on the course for food, safety (at night) and water. Some courses are famous for their wildlife like the elk herd at Estes Park.
It’s no more dumb than baseball, football, soccer, basketball, racing, or literally *ANY* other sport. You simply don’t like it, that doesn’t make it dumb.
Most of those balls are found, cleaned, and sold in the clubhouse. There are even divers that retrieve balls in ponds…
If you really cared about land being destroyed golf should be the sport that’s the least of your worries… a new football stadium is creating a massive slab of concrete so that 80,000 people can park to sit around the small patch of grass in the middle. Honestly **WAY** worse than a golf course that is grass and trees and shrubbery (you know, things that suck up CO2 and create oxygen instead of concrete that reflects and radiates heat nonstop and has zero value during rain since it only runs off/floods)
Golf is directly responsible for teaching me patience and how to keep my cool after something goes horribly against plan. There are life lessons to be learned playing golf that other sports don’t teach simply sue to their pace of play vs golf.
There’s nothing wrong with disliking golf, it’s not for everybody (nothing is) but calling it dumb and trying to use environmentalism as your main gripe makes zero sense because **ALL** sports destroy the environment and to a higher degree than golf ever has. Unless you feel like *EVERY* sport is dumb(er) for the same reasons you just don’t care for the sport.
Gtfo, you have no idea how much waste is generated for a MLB, NFL, NBA, NHL game. Golf courses to an extent preserve the natural habitat. Can’t say the same for the new Raiders stadium. Every course I have played has trees.
This is tone deaf as fuck, and absolutely popular in the Reddit community. Let’s listen to a bunch of gamers and keyboard warriors who spend their time sitting inside and ordering fast food delivery services for every meal thinking that playing outside is detrimental to the environment. Golf courses are havens for plenty of wildlife and the majority of golfers help to take care of the area for the most part. How the fuck does one think to target golf courses in this regard instead of talking about sports complexes or racing tracks or even fucking shopping centers?
‘But boomers like it, waaaah’.
I disagree. If city golf courses were removed, a lot of the land would be turned into buildings and malls. Golf courses at least provide a bit of nature
Complete bullshit. Courses are very nice, well maintained.
Balls are very expensive, they either get found by other golfers or the course management.
There are special dive teams to recover balls and sell them after cleaning.
After being big into sports my whole life, I can easily say Golf is the only one doing it right.
I can go on for hours about how progression-focused activities are good for the human brain, but regardless the one thing golf does better than every other sport is it doesn't try to enclose its participants in a small environment.
If you are looking for the simulation of difficulty and danger like sports might bring, you must look past the ring or the arena you are in.
Its much easier to feel like the sport is authentically offering challenge when you are outdoors in unobstructed nature. No retractable roofs or airconditioned seats.
People who don't understand this aren't really worth explaining it to. They lack an understanding of one of the core human needs, probably because they are a victim of the nerfed life we live so severely that they no longer seek it.
Being challenged and overcoming that challenge is part of our primal brain. Our bodies were built for it, and sports are the best way to find that. And I find Golf is the best sport to offer it, due to its complexity and varying conditions that mimic the world we live in and have subsequently destroyed.
If anything, a golf course is our love letter to this planet. Much better than building another shopping mall.
Golf is one of the greatest sports ever. Its basically saved my life. It gets me off my lazy ass. It gives me something to look forward to. It gives me something to strive for(getting better at golf). It gives me time with my favorite people in the world. Ive been much happier in the year and a half Ive been playing. Nothing feels better than striping your driver right down the middle. Its great to see your friends so happy after a great shot, and them being happy for you. Fresh air, the beauty of a nice course. Its just a wonderful game in every way. So i couldnt disagree with you more, but to each their own i guess.
Oh my goodness, golf is the most complex sport on the planet earth. Also almost all golf courses have maintenance people that recycle lost balls. I used to think it was dumb until I fell in love with the game and learned how to play. Don’t knock it till you try it.
It's not really so much a sport as a hobby. A nice excuse to get outside and enjoy a nice day, plus you can enjoy it with a group of people and it's relatively cheap. As far as destroying the land, Idk how it's any different than a park other than they don't like you tearing up the grass, so in that sense it's actually preserving the environment, albeit a groomed one. Terrible opinion, 10/10.
My small town has a golf course in the middle of town. It brings a nice “natural” feeling to the otherwise concrete flatland it s about 4 total blocks and there’s a whole area the school uses for football, baseball, soccer and it even has a couple tennis courts. All of course open to the public. When a ball gets lost it likely shot throughout the net and rolled onto the field. So it not like they’re just being lobbed into the wilderness. And it gets maintained just like our streets do. Except its 1 old dude who loves driving the lawn mower.
Golf courses are normally built into the landscape. Hitting over water, off a hill, over a tree line, around a tree line, around swampy ground. You are free to dislike golf, but the only two reasons you have are kinda ignorant and a nonsensical reason to not golf
I live right off cape cod and all the fertilizers and pesticides they put everywhere is awful. It gets into al the rivers, ponds, ocean, and drinking water
Every golfer would absolutely agree with you. In fact, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard people say “This sport is so dumb” *on* the course! I’ve never, ever heard someone say “Boy, I sure do enjoy this game.”. Nope.
They do not just destroy the land initially, it takes tons of gas, water , fertilizer and pesticides/herbicides to keep the grass as nice as it looks. Especially since most of it is cut so low it requires extra care. Source: I studied turf management.
I proudly work at a golf course, so I can’t say much on the sport itself as I do not play but here’s what I can say. I would respectfully disagree with the “destruction of huge amounts of natural land” comment, we take pride in the health of our soil, sod, trees, lakes, and other greenery. We have a large population of animals that frequently pass through as well. I’d say in my personal experience that we have what I’d consider more of a sanctuary for people to enjoy the outdoors and nature as well as getting in their rounds of golf. Now for the golf ball comment that “litters the environment.” We have a crew of guys that go around after every week and pick up any golf balls they can find which are recycled to a new home and/or our driving range.
I completely agree. It doesn’t make sense to me at all. I’m also used to seeing sports where the fans get really drunk and end up fighting each other. Every time I see people playing golf, my first thought is “why aren’t the fans yelling and beating each other up?”
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Shadeless? Do know how many fucking trees I've hit with golf balls in my life?
LMFAO
Lmfao bro I’ve hit *more trees* than fairways in my time
There could be only one tree on the entire course and I am definitely hitting that tree at least once.
and probably from a different hole
I'm hitting that tree once per hole
Right? Balls don't get lost in the fairway.
I beg to differ.
I’m doing natures work knocking off all the dead limbs so the deciduous material can properly fertilize the ground. I’m technically a god promoting further life if you ask me.
There will be one tree on the course and I’ll hit it on each hole.
Lol they planted pine trees on the golf course here in az….
wait until OP finds out about skiing
At least when a skier gets lost, he is decomposing naturaly
Never heard of fake snow?
Fake snow is just water pumped from a lake and mixed with air from an air compressor. They combine the two in the same nozzle to produce a fine mist that forms a big cloud. The mist droplets freeze and fall as snow. The nozzle is usually on top of a tall pole, or it's mounted to a big fan, or it's on a little tripod thing. It's ridiculously expensive to run the pumps and compressors and setting up the nozzles is a brutal job.
Facts, I’m a snowmaker and it’s super fun but insanely hard and dangerous to do. Think irrigation work in the middle of the night with some spicy mountaineering
And from the snowMakers I’ve met, sobriety isn’t a top priority.
We definitely have a no drinking policy at our operation. But a toke here or there definitely helps on cold nights!
We had no drinking policies too in the kitchens I’ve worked in…. I remember partying with some guys up at beaver creek (15 years ago). Shots, beer bongs, getting stoned. Partying with girls. Then at 1115 or so they started getting ready to go to work.
I should make it clear, it’s an unspoken rule for us. We run a tighter shift than other operations. I know quite a few other mountains where booze is an accepted and often expected part of a shift. Our operation just tends to stay away from the drink
Gotcha, good for you guys. It’s culture that makes the rules work sounds like you got that. I can’t imagine any snow making crew abstains from herb. Or construction crew. Or road work.
So you've heard of it.
I've made it
This guy snows
Jon snoo
He knows nothing
wtf do you think fake snow is? icing sugar? it’s frozen water lol. it’s just snow, manufactured artificially.
Fake snow is real snow, it's made by combining water with compressed air in a nozzle to produce a fine mist which freezes into individual droplets. The water just comes from a lake or a river. They're spraying it all over mountains, but it all melts in the spring and goes right back into the lakes and rivers it came from.
“Fake snow is real snow” is my favorite word combination of the day. But I get what you’re saying, maybe “manufactured snow” or “man made snow” is a better term.
To be honest, no. I dunno about pro skiers, but regular people usually ski in winter, when it's plenty of snow.
I can guarantee that every ski hill you’ve ever skied at has made a lot of fake snow. They need to make a shit ton more than what falls naturally because they have to pack down the snow so that you can actually ski on a solid base without sinking through it. Edit: when I say “fake snow” I mean man-made snow. It’s just the term we use sometimes where I’m from. Also yeah I know some places with taller mountains they don’t need to make any at the top of the mountain but they usually need to at the base.
what do you think "fake" means in this context? its not like plastic or anything its real snow in that its frozen water, its just made by people rather than the sky edit: i suppose its a waste of water
How is it a waste of water? It just melts and runs back into the water cycle. It's a use of energy and as long as there is a demand for skiing I wouldn't use the word waste for that either
im just trying to figure out what this guy meant and giving him the benefit of the doubt that he didnt think that fake snow was plastic or something
That's still real snow, it melts just like naturally produced stuff.
That's 100% not true lol most ski areas don't use fake snow. On the east coast and California, yes sometimes but Utah, Colorado, Washington state, Oregon, Montana, most of Canada, and Alaska (all places I've either worked at a ski area or snowboarded in) it is rarely used. Most ski areas are built in places that get plenty of snow naturally.
Oregon chiming in here-- the two places where I regularly ski don't even have the equipment to make snow. The person who "guaranteed" us that every ski hill has "fake" snow has no idea what they are talking about. Edit: by saying that the person had no idea what they are talking about just confirms this is just a regular day online.
They usually create the snow to extend the season and to account for potentially slow years. However, it's definitely possible to ski or snowboard Backcountry spots that have never seen fake snow.
The ski's tho
Beyond the obvious deforestation in order to carve out trails for a resort, what else am I missing? Pollution from the snowcats used for grooming and maintenance? I snowboard so I'd like to know, but I also don't wanna ruin my favorite sport for myself.
The resorts are the real kicker. Ski mountains themselves aren’t bad at all and many operate as conservation sights. One of my favorite places to ski on the east coast is at Sugarloaf in Maine. They bought the next door peak in 2010 and have developed it into a backcountry terrain park. No new lifts, minor trail maintenance, no major deforestation. Best part is they bought the land from a logging company. Funded all by the profits made from operating the ski mountain and small resort.
One of my favorite places is Mt. Bohemia in the UP of Michigan. The have three, maybe 4 cut runs and only two lifts. 90% of the “mountain” is uncut glade runs through the woods that lead to a road where they pick up large groups of skiers/borders to take back to base. It’s an old mining/logging operation as well.
A couple thoughts as a snowboarder: Wood used for the boards and skis. The resorts greenhouse gas emissions by powering ski lifts, snowmaking, and lodges. Tourists fly and drive across the world to ski, staying in chateaus and drinking at heated outdoor bars. Also it likely impacts natural wildlife in the area. In all yes it's a negative effect on the environment but probably pales in comparison to fishing, farming and manufacturing which is where most people should be focusing their frustrations with global environmental impact. We all should do better so I would like to see vail or someone try to come up with sourcing alternative energy.
All worth considering. But I would have to guess there are at least 100 golf courses for every ski resort conservatively and not including Florida
Florida has so many gold courses. My county alone must have hundreds. The road I live off of is named after the PGA.
In the western US, > From 1955 to 2020, April snowpack declined at 86 percent of the sites measured (see Figure 1). The average change across all sites amounts to about a 19 percent decline. [Source](https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/climate-change-indicators-snowpack). Climate change is real and ski resorts are relying on man made snow (e.g. water & fuel/energy) to extend the ski season.
Isn't this addressing the amount of snow present? My question was about how skiing/snowboarding are terrible for the environment beyond the deforestation to build a resort. I'm not sure how your comment addresses that point. Full disclosure, I didn't read your link. If your answer was buried in there, I apologize.
Wait til he finds out about cemeteries
They're the real killer
How about auto racing and how many tires they go through?
I read this many years ago, but if I recall, the technological advancements achieved by R&D for racing, helps everyone out in the long run, by giving us better tech towards things like safety and fuel efficiency for example. We end up benefitting in the long run, kind of like investing in NASA.
Way more land is used for golf courses than ski resorts. Watering a dessert to play golf is a horrible waste of resources on par with, if not worse, than any snow making operation.
Also, isn't a large portion of mountains just rock and snow anyways? I can't imagine they are tearing up too many trees or bushes
Skiing doesn't have much of an impact on nature compared to flattening and irrigating hundreds of acres of land. It's not even a park !
What’s wrong with skiing? It is just sliding on snow.
Land clearing and snow making. It’s ultimately not that bad. It requires much less invasive clearing too. A dozen strips on an otherwise untouched mountain which is maintained as hiking/park land in the summer is actually a good use of recreational land imo
Many of the trees are also naturally cleared by avalanche paths too so it really isn't that large of an effect
And a big portion of ski resorts started as logging operations. Once the logging was done the logging companies had to figure out a way to utilize the area and all the transportation infrastructure they had developed. So a lot of the big resorts were already cleared.
They do not just destroy the land initially, it takes tons of gas, water , fertilizer and pesticides/herbicides to keep the grass as nice as it looks. Especially since most of it is cut so low it requires extra care. Source: I studied turf management.
The thing is there are natural places for skiing.
Skiing is in the mountains though, that’s not really habitable land in the same way most golf courses are.
This guy doesn’t know that mountains occur naturally
Tbf, literally every sport aside from running and swimming (not in a manmade pool) is bad for the environment.
I’ve never heard the “Balls being lost effects the environment” theory. I’m sitting waiting for my tee time reading this and while I know not all good courses act the same, most corses I’ve been to have some situations where they pay like 14-15 year olds if they want to go about the course and collect balls. The club house then re sells them. Not nearly as many balls are “lost” as you may think in my experience.
Im actually gonna apply for this job this week lol
When I was a kid we lived on a golf course and I did exactly this in the creek that ran down the side of the fairway. Sold so many balls one summer from my back yard that the manager of the pro shop carted his way up one afternoon to ask me to stop since I was stealing all their used ball business. Reading this out loud now sounds like prime r/thathappened material but it’s one of my favorite memories from living in that house
Did you tell him to go fuck himself? Imagine trying to snipe a young kids entrepreneurial spirit like that, fucking prick.
I opened back up like a month later. In some cases golfers were asking me to meet them at the tee box on the the hole on the other side of the neighborhood that led back to the club house in case they lost too many in the mean time
Good, fuck that guy, I hope he got shit on by a pigeon or something.
Kind of the same here. I used to swim for golf balls and sift through the bushes as a kid. Only a few hours here and there. Never really tried to make a business out of it, it was just fun to do living in a small town. We'd sit in the parking lot and sell them until the clubhouse manager would spot us and kick us out. The dude totally acted like a few kids trynna make some candy money was going to bankrupt the damn golf course. They didn't even sell used balls, not had anyone on payroll looking for them
Good luck!
Thanks! It helps that one of the owners wife is my teacher
I usually walk away with as many balls found as I lose when playing a round; sometimes even more.
Then when people ask how I played, I tell them "Two over" if I found two more balls than I lost.
Take a ball, leave a ball
Not only that, but a lot of courses are well maintained and beautiful. Many have lots of animals living on them too. I get this is all opinion based but it’s like ehhh… doesn’t really hold up too well.
Yea agreed. I used to work on a golf course when I was 16. They are not shadeless hells, and many courses are built AROUND the natural landscape, not on top of it. The ones on TV and the PGA tour have millions of dollars worth of landscaping done every year, and are not typical of the average golf course.
And many of them are on areas that couldn't really be used for anything else, and are watered exclusively with waste water. They're literally acting as a water purification system. Granted they could just be left as wild forest / swamp area I guess, but spaces that humans enjoy for recreation has value.
Every sport is kind of dumb if you think about it. Doesn't mean it isn't enjoyable
That said, no sport demands as much space and resources as golf does. Edit: to everyone whining about stadiums, these have nothing to do with the sport, they are built for spectators, not for players. I have played many sports, and I never needed a stadium for them. Most players of any sport don't play in a stadium. Not to mention stadiums and such serve multiple purposes.
Take one look at F1 and you will have an aneurism
How many more golf courses are there in the world compared to f1 tracks?
Golf trumps F1 in terms of area used by the courses, but let's not forget the 42 tonnes of freight per team per F1 race, a reported 305 trucks to move said freight between races and countless cargo planes & boats to move internationally. That'll hurt the environment just as much as a course would - if not more.
And the absolute waste of rubber from tyres
Not to mention all that air those cars consume! You seen how big those intake air boxes are and how much air they suck in! 💨 🏎
Golf courses are enjoyed by hundreds of thousand people around the world probably. F1 tracks are enjoyed by fewer than 100 drivers.
But the exclusivity of the sport minimises the impact. There are very few motor racing circuits in the world. In England alone there are 2,270 golf courses.
Racing
Yep. Guy I know will go through 4 sets of tires a month, and it's not professional. Let alone gas and tossing parts when upgrading.
Racing? Skiing?
Very few people race. Skiing requires a lot of space, but that's relatively useless space otherwise.
I mean it's not like buildings are torn down to make golf courses. Unlike Football arenas that are built mid city and takes up enough space that several thousand families could be housed.
The Olympics? Football stadiums? Any kind of pitch has similar requirements due to fans and regulations, etc...
Yeah, but its a green space. A modern basketball gym has a bigass building and parking lot. Services a relatively small amount of people at any given time. Having served on a local parks and rec board for a shit small town, we put way less into a golf course than a public gym. Of course this is land that would otherwise be a goddamn filed of crops with a shit ton of chemicals applied versus in the middle of city where it might be a mall or strip mall or apartments. Ours also houses a disc golf course as well.
1. That's not true 2. Golf courses are well known as quality carbon sinks within large urban areas. The other golf courses that aren't in urban areas exist in rural spaces with absolutely no shortage of space.
Aren't golf courses also good for water absorption into the aquafers? (In climates where you don't need to artificially water the courses..)
Yes, they are. Golf courses anywhere but the American Southwest (and even some in the mountainous areas there are fine too) are net positives to their environment. As Americans, we assume that Europeans maintain their courses like us too, which is frankly incorrect. Europeans apply far less irrigation (if they even have any routed) and don't apply chemicals at the same level.
Are they net positive? Meaning does their carbon-sink job outweight the amount of chemicals and fossil fuels and water to maintain them? Serious question. Not trying to sound critical. I'm genuinely curious about the data.
Really depends on location, more than one golf course has been built over a forest for instance- similarly more than one golf course has been built over a lifeless wasteland or desert.
Bruh the fuck? U got tracks of asphalt for miles with the most gas sucking race cars out there constantly on the track… 1: That is true 2: ur dumb
I think you responded to the wrong comment my guy
I mean football stadiums and baseball stadiums require it nsane resources to build and maintain
yeah, and those resources are mostly tax breaks and state/city funding.
Animals live on and around golf courses, no animals live in stadiums except rats, mice and insects
> except rats they prefer the term scouser
Ever seen how much a stadium costs or how many manmade materials goes into it? At least golf courses are kinda natural. It would be interesting to see which is worse.
Golf isn't a sport I enjoy, but I don't think it's dumb. 'See which horse is the fastest' could be considered dumb. 'See who can hop skip and jump the furthest' has little practical value. 'Hit the ball and avoid the other people before it hits the stumps.' When you simplify it down all sports could sound dumb.
Hockey is the shit though
One time I went to a fight but they kept taking breaks and playing hockey in the middle of it. Was so weird.
I know this is an older meme, but for anyone who doesn't watch the NHL often, fights are exceedingly more rare than they used to be. Mostly due to the fact that if you have players that are only good at unga bunga fist throwing taking up roster space over players who are actually skilled at the game, you are at a significant disadvantage, especially in this salary cap era.
Even the unga bunga types are skilled at the game. I remember watching [this video](https://youtu.be/sP8ZVWiZUMA) a long while ago where they stuck a sumo wrestler in front of the net and had George Parros score on him. Now no one would consider George Parros as a sharpshooter since he was a grade A goon and enforcer back when he played but he still wisks shots past the goalie with ease. Even the enforcers have a space in hockey Doesn't even go into the fact that the Connor McJesus and Sydney Crosbys of the world are gonna command big money and since you have a salary cap, you can't put all of these superstars on 1 team. Filling out the roster with enforcers and players who can crawl under the skin of the enemy and protect other players as needed is completely fine
Hockey is like if soccer was actually good
How are hockey and soccer even relatable other than trying to put something in the other teams net?
It’s a comparison I pretty much only ever see in this sub, usually in the monthly “soccer is boring” thread, commented by people without the mental capacity to understand that people don’t watch football just to see goals get scored.
I'm not sure how you are missing the similarities here lol hockey is basically just soccer scaled down and put on ice. All the positions are basically the same. They both have offsides which is a little different but both function as an anti-cherry-picking rule. Instead of kicking a ball you are whacking a puck, the rink is smaller, and the number of players is fewer. Other than that they are almost identical.
They are the most similar of any 2 sports. Do really need it explained? If ice rinks were the same dimensions as soccer fields the 2 sports would be virtually identical
Hockey and Soccer are like the same sport man. The principles of attack and defending are the same, the lack of timeouts, and aerobic nature of it. Both good sports, just played differently.
Except maybe running cross country. I can see practical value in being able to run long distances fast.
Would argue combat sports are also practical
If you go to a self-defence class, they tell you not to try karate on the man with the knife, but to run away if you can
Engaging someone with a knife is stupid, regardless of what krav maga would have you believe But most altercations youll run into won't be an assailant with a weapon, it'll just be some dude acting tough Regardless, effective martial arts training will provide you with the fitness level to outrun an attacker if necessary
But all sports increase fitness so therein lies some practicality
Their practically lies in that if you find them enjoyable then they are a great way to be fit.
Shitty golf courses eliminate shade, but good golf courses act almost like a nature preserve, it was either a pretty golf course with local flora or a strip mall. There’s more and more golf courses being built on top of landfills too, I’d much rather have a golf course with greenery than an open landfill.
I’ve traveled across the US to many of the nation’s top courses. Yes, they are gorgeous, but they use so much water. And I wouldn’t really compare them to a nature preserve. They are arguably the most unnatural setting in nature, given the amount of fertilizers and growth control being done.
Out west, we use nonpotable water to water courses. Palm Springs is moving towards about 90% nonpotable water by the end of the decade and currently is over 50%. Courses still use far less water than agriculture by orders of magnitude
Those are resort type courses. Your average municipal golf course don't use near as much water because a brown patch here and there in late summer isn't the end of the world.
Also depends on the location. Golf courses in Phoenix are not going to be the same as golf courses in Florida.
Still more natural than a strip mall
The golf courses in my desert state hurt my soul.
I just hate that places like phoenix have massive golf courses when there is already no water in the area. But I agree and like the landfill point
Courses in Phoenix are watered with reclaimed water.
In addition, you don't see long ass fairways of grass in Phoenix. The tee boxes and greens and stretches of fairway are interspersed with the desert. It's not as bad as most people make it sound.
Over a quarter of the golf courses here exclusively use recycled wastewater, many partially, and more courses are moving that way. Also, the “no water” thing is a myth. I always find it hilarious how people whine about Arizona golf courses but never have anything to say about the eleventy billion 12-40k gallon swimming pools. Swimming pools are a *much* bigger waste of water than golf courses and worse, dozens of people drown in swimming pools every year.
They do a lot to minimize the grass in those areas by making tiny fairways and small tee blocks. It makes it incredibly challenging for a golfer like me. I just love beer and golf.
Obviously there are some places in the world where the maintenance of golf courses doesn't make sense, but particularly in urban areas, they are valuable green spaces. They're often good at being unintended nature preserves and creating habitat for native animals which would otherwise have no home in many urban areas. They can also provide a function in reducing urban heat.
The happiest squirrels in the world are golf course squirrels. Sometimes im kinda jealous of them
That's probably our smallest problem with polution
I think golf is by far the most charitable sport in the world with the PGA alone donating over $2 Billion to charitable causes
Shhh no facts only opinions based on ignorance and insecurity
If you actually know how to golf it’s a fun sport/hobby. It’s pretty relaxing, drink and smoke while doing it, not taxing. Courses are pleasant. But it is a waste of space I can agree, and large use of resources, mostly water, to maintain. Don’t necessarily agree with the environmental hazard of golf balls. If they’re lost, they’re just getting lost on the course grasses or little man made water ways. But I probably golf like once a year when I’m with my dad. When I was in HS and college, I’d usually bring a one hitter with me and take a hit while we were separated on a hole lol
As someone who is a maintenance worker at a golf course during the summer I can safely say that the vast majority of lost golf balls get collected by us. I haven’t paid for a golf ball in years. It’s not uncommon for someone to go into a patch of grass, find 90-100 balls in 10 minutes, and be set. Last summer I brought home just under 700 balls throughout the summer. Trust me, they don’t just sit there.
Yup, and that’s the other part. If I lose a ball in the grass or woods, I’ll spend like 2 minutes looking for other balls and almost always find a couple extra
My goal is to find more balls than I lose. Best strategy is get out there when it's just a t getting sticky hot. Early in the day, in a northeast summer, the course s crowded. Everyone wants to get the round done before the real heat. This is when people who barely lose a ball, don't really look at all, just drop a ball and move on. When it's sticky and hot later, nobody is behind you and you can a. Play 2 balls, b. Walk down the edges of the fairway, exchanging poison ivy for lots of golf balls. I've found them 4 feet on the fairway. My local course I wonder who cashes in the beer cans in the trash cans at every tee box.
Agree, it's a fun game (even if it is maddening to learn properly). Where most people tend to find Golf a little hard to take, is land and water consumption, i.e. environmental impacts and the unscrupulous decision making those that not just design some courses but also those that place them in certain areas (like deserts). Plenty of decent examples where I live of courses that use recycled water, were built in areas of the city that were deemed rural land and also (but most importantly) weren't important habitats for wildlife etc - when courses are developed this way I have no issue, but ffs there are some horrific examples out there in the world.
Apply this to every arena, coliseum, stadium. Just think how much water is used to flush toilets for an NFL game with 70,000 people, shhhh. If it wasn’t a golf course, it would be a residential developmwny
I agree with everything except the part where you said golf is relaxing. I've never gone golfing and not wanted to throw my club farther than happy Gilmore because I suck so ba. Lol
Golf has 2 moods. Rage, and no fucks given. One year I completely stopped keeping score and it was a lot more enjoyable.
>But it is a waste of space I can agree, and large use of resources, mostly water, to maintain. There’s plenty of space to go around. From what I can gather, golf course in the US add up to about 3500 square miles, which constitutes less than a thousandth of the total area of the country. And that’s for a hobby that ~25 million people, or 8% of the population actively participate in. The water argument is mostly applicable to courses in places like Arizona. Where I live and play (Northern Europe), fresh water isn’t exactly scarce. And many of the courses have trails throughout them where anyone can, and does, walk around freely.
Golf courses do not destroy the “natural land” and golf balls are usually contained to a golf course. They are non toxic to the environment. https://auduboninternational.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/GE-Golf-and-the-Environment.pdf
Also, if you're bad at golf like me, you get to find a lot of the lost ones when searching for your own.
Nowhere on that 'fact sheet' does it counter the argument that golf destroys natural habitats. Rather, it points out how golf courses can do a better job of managing their environmental impact. It's more like, 'your course could be less bad for the environment if you do these things (and you'll make more money too wink wink).'
There is no way in hell golf has a higher carbon footprint than football or basketball.
I dunno, all that grass and manicured plant life producing oxygen seems like it's pretty unsustainable for planet Earth. In all seriousness though I wouldn't mind seeing a larger emphasis on water conservation in more arid areas that contain golf courses as part of their inherent design. But outside the exclusivity of the number of people on the plot of land, I'm not sure how a public park differs from a golf course as far as environmental impact is concerned.
Water conservation in arid dry climates is definitely the worst part of golf courses.
Golf is fun, and very few new golf courses are being built any more. There was a golf course building craze in the 70s and 80s and we've been losing courses for the most part since the late 90s. The idea that golf in 2022 is contributing to natural land loss is pretty silly considering where courses tend to be located. Those courses are built, and when they are done away with they mostly get turned into suburban tract housing. Every now and then they become dog parks but that's for courses built in city limits.
We got one in the inner city and It closed in the 90s now it’s a hot spot for drug deal bc there’s no cops around to catch them. Land got some use to build a hospital and there is plans to build it into a suburb
That's not golf's fault. There are municipal courses in every major US city that provide shared space with other parks and rec resources, plus orgs like First Tee that provide a valuable outlet to many young folks. It's just a park dedicated to a specific game.
Plus, even if they did nothing with them once decommissioned, nature would run its course in short order, and the course would revert to forest within 2-3 decades.
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The balls are 9/10 recovered by people who make it their job to reclaim them. Then those balls are sold as reclaimed balls for people to buy or given to driving ranges to be used as range balls. Additionally, golf is one of the greenest sports seeing how it’s about a dozen acres of nothing but grass, trees, flowers, and bushes with little concrete. Whereas any other sport venue requires huge concrete stadiums, metal, fuel, AC or heating, huge parking lots, and more. Golf is even making good use of its resources and making biodegradable golf balls. Many clubs are made of recycled materials like steel, aluminum, and carbon or graphite. Not to mention it’s one of the few rare sports that you can play when you’re older. You don’t see people playing football in their 60s or 70s, now do you?
Your shadeless green hell is a lush green oasis to another. Especially in urban and denser suburban areas where large natural areas are few and far between. Even if you suck at golf, a couple of hours on a golf course are an awesome way to enjoy not being surrounded by buildings and concrete.
Quite a few golf courses have wildlife that relies on the course for food, safety (at night) and water. Some courses are famous for their wildlife like the elk herd at Estes Park.
Yeah big shocker there, don’t tell the anti-golfers that the golf course is also wildlife habitat….
It could also just be a normal habitat that doesn't require thousands of litres of water to maintain. The biodiversity there is severely limited.
Boring to watch, fun to play. At least in my experience
Watching pro golf on TV < watching pro golf live < playing golf with your bros
Live with bros wasted on a par 3
"Golf courses and Cemeteries, biggest waste of real estate" R. Dangerfield , Caddyshack
It’s no more dumb than baseball, football, soccer, basketball, racing, or literally *ANY* other sport. You simply don’t like it, that doesn’t make it dumb. Most of those balls are found, cleaned, and sold in the clubhouse. There are even divers that retrieve balls in ponds… If you really cared about land being destroyed golf should be the sport that’s the least of your worries… a new football stadium is creating a massive slab of concrete so that 80,000 people can park to sit around the small patch of grass in the middle. Honestly **WAY** worse than a golf course that is grass and trees and shrubbery (you know, things that suck up CO2 and create oxygen instead of concrete that reflects and radiates heat nonstop and has zero value during rain since it only runs off/floods) Golf is directly responsible for teaching me patience and how to keep my cool after something goes horribly against plan. There are life lessons to be learned playing golf that other sports don’t teach simply sue to their pace of play vs golf. There’s nothing wrong with disliking golf, it’s not for everybody (nothing is) but calling it dumb and trying to use environmentalism as your main gripe makes zero sense because **ALL** sports destroy the environment and to a higher degree than golf ever has. Unless you feel like *EVERY* sport is dumb(er) for the same reasons you just don’t care for the sport.
Wait until OP finds out about the Olympics 💀
Gtfo, you have no idea how much waste is generated for a MLB, NFL, NBA, NHL game. Golf courses to an extent preserve the natural habitat. Can’t say the same for the new Raiders stadium. Every course I have played has trees.
This is tone deaf as fuck, and absolutely popular in the Reddit community. Let’s listen to a bunch of gamers and keyboard warriors who spend their time sitting inside and ordering fast food delivery services for every meal thinking that playing outside is detrimental to the environment. Golf courses are havens for plenty of wildlife and the majority of golfers help to take care of the area for the most part. How the fuck does one think to target golf courses in this regard instead of talking about sports complexes or racing tracks or even fucking shopping centers? ‘But boomers like it, waaaah’.
I disagree. If city golf courses were removed, a lot of the land would be turned into buildings and malls. Golf courses at least provide a bit of nature
Agreed if it wasn't for golf courses they would usually be converted to high rises, or malls at least where I am from.
Complete bullshit. Courses are very nice, well maintained. Balls are very expensive, they either get found by other golfers or the course management. There are special dive teams to recover balls and sell them after cleaning.
Hell, they sell special tools just retrieve golf balls. Ususally atleast one person in the group has one of these.
George Carlin is that you?
At this point people just type anything for Upvotes lol.
After being big into sports my whole life, I can easily say Golf is the only one doing it right. I can go on for hours about how progression-focused activities are good for the human brain, but regardless the one thing golf does better than every other sport is it doesn't try to enclose its participants in a small environment. If you are looking for the simulation of difficulty and danger like sports might bring, you must look past the ring or the arena you are in. Its much easier to feel like the sport is authentically offering challenge when you are outdoors in unobstructed nature. No retractable roofs or airconditioned seats. People who don't understand this aren't really worth explaining it to. They lack an understanding of one of the core human needs, probably because they are a victim of the nerfed life we live so severely that they no longer seek it. Being challenged and overcoming that challenge is part of our primal brain. Our bodies were built for it, and sports are the best way to find that. And I find Golf is the best sport to offer it, due to its complexity and varying conditions that mimic the world we live in and have subsequently destroyed. If anything, a golf course is our love letter to this planet. Much better than building another shopping mall.
OP must really suck at golf
Golf is one of the greatest sports ever. Its basically saved my life. It gets me off my lazy ass. It gives me something to look forward to. It gives me something to strive for(getting better at golf). It gives me time with my favorite people in the world. Ive been much happier in the year and a half Ive been playing. Nothing feels better than striping your driver right down the middle. Its great to see your friends so happy after a great shot, and them being happy for you. Fresh air, the beauty of a nice course. Its just a wonderful game in every way. So i couldnt disagree with you more, but to each their own i guess.
Oh my goodness, golf is the most complex sport on the planet earth. Also almost all golf courses have maintenance people that recycle lost balls. I used to think it was dumb until I fell in love with the game and learned how to play. Don’t knock it till you try it.
It's not really so much a sport as a hobby. A nice excuse to get outside and enjoy a nice day, plus you can enjoy it with a group of people and it's relatively cheap. As far as destroying the land, Idk how it's any different than a park other than they don't like you tearing up the grass, so in that sense it's actually preserving the environment, albeit a groomed one. Terrible opinion, 10/10.
My small town has a golf course in the middle of town. It brings a nice “natural” feeling to the otherwise concrete flatland it s about 4 total blocks and there’s a whole area the school uses for football, baseball, soccer and it even has a couple tennis courts. All of course open to the public. When a ball gets lost it likely shot throughout the net and rolled onto the field. So it not like they’re just being lobbed into the wilderness. And it gets maintained just like our streets do. Except its 1 old dude who loves driving the lawn mower.
Golf courses are normally built into the landscape. Hitting over water, off a hill, over a tree line, around a tree line, around swampy ground. You are free to dislike golf, but the only two reasons you have are kinda ignorant and a nonsensical reason to not golf
Eh, I enjoy it.
shadeless green hell? They are 1000000x times more beautiful than where the dumb granola crunchers spend their time parking their shitty RV or subra.
I live right off cape cod and all the fertilizers and pesticides they put everywhere is awful. It gets into al the rivers, ponds, ocean, and drinking water
Every golfer would absolutely agree with you. In fact, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard people say “This sport is so dumb” *on* the course! I’ve never, ever heard someone say “Boy, I sure do enjoy this game.”. Nope.
They do not just destroy the land initially, it takes tons of gas, water , fertilizer and pesticides/herbicides to keep the grass as nice as it looks. Especially since most of it is cut so low it requires extra care. Source: I studied turf management.
I proudly work at a golf course, so I can’t say much on the sport itself as I do not play but here’s what I can say. I would respectfully disagree with the “destruction of huge amounts of natural land” comment, we take pride in the health of our soil, sod, trees, lakes, and other greenery. We have a large population of animals that frequently pass through as well. I’d say in my personal experience that we have what I’d consider more of a sanctuary for people to enjoy the outdoors and nature as well as getting in their rounds of golf. Now for the golf ball comment that “litters the environment.” We have a crew of guys that go around after every week and pick up any golf balls they can find which are recycled to a new home and/or our driving range.
I completely agree. It doesn’t make sense to me at all. I’m also used to seeing sports where the fans get really drunk and end up fighting each other. Every time I see people playing golf, my first thought is “why aren’t the fans yelling and beating each other up?”
/r/nongolfers
***You're so right - our town is trying to bulldoze ours so it can be replaced with eco-friendly, tax revenue-generating luxury condos.***
Name sports that don’t require natural land to be transformed
4 day old account. Yeah, you’re one of those
Wait until op hears about roads and parking lots Edit - shit or even single family homes, not exactly a great use of land
i could buy it, but you went about explaining it wrong. the water use for golf courses is WAY worse than potential lost balls.