this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2025
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Well, they sure aren't helping the ecosystem, but I wouldn't say dead. I live near a golf course, lot's of wildlife visiting it in the odd hours. And that is just the bigger stuff I can see.
Big animals don’t have a lasting ecological impact when the soil is dead. A golf course has no viable shrub cover, no insects to speak of, no real living soil, nothing. It’s basically a dead presentation field for some larger animals that abandon it after social functions. The area itself is not much more suited for live than a parking lot. Which also has wildlife visiting.
What are you talking about? They don't plow bulldoze the place. There are plenty of shrubs and such, just not on the fairway. The few times I have golfed myself, I have never failed to lose a ball in some brush. And I remember getting bitten by mosquitoes at at least one. They always have a retention pond, and that thing is a haven for insect life. The ducks and geese always stop at the nearby course and are clearly finding food.
A golf course is dead ecologically speaking. Mowed gras supports nearly zero biodiversity. Compare it to any natural meadow and you’ll easily see why golf courses are a joke. Having a few token species (mosquitos, ducks) that thrive everywhere is no indicator of ecological viability. Get a bat coder and find some bats, find smaller snakes, rodents and newts, then you got a living thing going. The soil deteriorates without natural cover, cultivated grass shrubs don’t retain a root system that supports a healthy soil. Instead nutrients and so on are washed out over time. Fauna dependent on nutrient enrichment by plants growing on the soil slowly dies until there is none left to incorporate eventual nutrient rich matter. Just because it might look „nice and alive“ doesn’t mean it is. It’s an ecological wasteland, optics don’t really play a role in that.
I think you are talking about the kind of golf courses you see in movies and TV. Those do exist. But they are a tiny minority. The shrubs and such I am talking about aren't cultivated. Most courses are not that high end. My buddy plays a ton of golf, but at low end places because he is a teacher. The fairway and the green are the only place they modify the landscape. Every hole is surrounded by untouched natural space. Trees, overgrowth, and whatever was there. Costs too much to manage. Some don't fertilizer or water anything but the greens, though only select climates can getaway with not watering in the summer. You are asssuming all golf courses are like the high end ones. They aren't.
I work in forestry. We got several courses round here and they are all the way you described as high class. We don’t get any low end places like you describe here.
Where do you live? My experiences are in NY and Oregon. We have a few places like you describe. But the vast majority are mom and pop courses where they carve out a little space for a hole and leave the rest untouched. The on closest to me is surrounded by houses, so some of the trees they have are really old. Would have been cleared for housing if not for the course. So it is almost like an oasis for wildlife. Though obviously it is on the high end side for sure, it still preserves some natural space that acts as a way point for larger stuff moving through the area from the undeveloped land not too far by. Thier ecosystem isn't impressive, but still plenty of small stuff for the ducks that stop by continuously.
Germany.
Interesting. I could totally see what you are saying being true throughout Europe. It might just be that golfers won't accept the kind of courses we have here. Might consider them uncouth or something.
In the US we often get this impression of Europe as old world traditionalists. Early education and media do that. I assume it isn't actually true of the majority of Europeans. But maybe golfers skew that way in Germany?
Golf is a Kind of expensive hobby around here, or at least it’s considered expensive. This makes golf an elite hobby and people with money tend to care about optics. Sadly.
That tracks. In most of the US it is a lot less expensive then it is perceived. 18 holes can be played for as little as $20. Though usually more like 30 or 40 if near an urban area. And clubs are easy to come by used at great prices.