Developers, naturally enough, are not too happy to hear this. While, for understandable business reasons they don’t like fitting fewer housing units into their overall plan, if Jeremy Slessor has it right then, unless a compromise is reached between the distances golf balls fly, and the amount of clearance that developers will allow, this essential public safety issue ‘will kill golf/housing development...
That was one important lesson, but the ‘green’ lobby is, of course, as much about the protection of wild life and plant life as of human life, and in this regard there were some fascinating stories to be told.
In Antalya, Southern Turkey, for instance, it was turtles, hundreds of them, on a glorious, golden beach, that prevented the construction of what would have been one of the few truly great links courses outside of the UK and Ireland. On investigation it proved that the instruction delivered by the development company funding the proposed design, to ‘clear the beach of turtles’, would have been illegal and subject to prosecution.
There are 1.5 million Turtle Tourists in the World. and they spend some 300 million euros each year on pursuing their interest. Quite apart from the necessary protection of the species, ‘turtles are worth more alive than dead’!
Jeremy Slessor and his colleagues pulled out of the deal. Another company took over... and were prosecuted, he said with a smile.
The fact is that any company planning the construction of a new golfing complex must observe increasingly strict guidelines if they are to get the precious go-ahead. The Ryder Cup is not immune from this.
When Celtic Manor, Welsh venue of the Matches for 2010 was being re-designed, it had to take on board the protection of a precious archaeo-logical site at a cost of £500,000, while also ensuring the on-going well-being of bats, water rats, badgers, and dormice. Ah, yes, the dormice... Unhappily, when the first proposed plan went in, the furry little creatures had been overlooked. It took an expensive 18-month delay to provide the necessary ‘corridors’ for them to happily pursue their normal lifestyle.
Getting everything in shape for Tiger & Co. in four years time is one thing. Looking out for the dormice, well that’s something else entirely... For me, the opening speaker Joaquin Aranda Gallego, a specialist from the local University of Murcia, got right to the root of the challenges facing his region and all the other expanding golf destinations around the world where water is in short supply. The region, in its role as the fastest-growing in Spain, is facing the question “Do we use our water to grow tomatoes…or to water golf courses?”
Five golf courses have been opened in Murcia in the last five years and 20 licences have been granted for further development schemes. Some are well advanced in planning terms. That’s how the Costa del Sol was in, say, 1980-ish. With these golf courses come large housing developments attracting growing numbers of tourists and residents. All this in a varied region that, while rich in fine culture and enviable tourist attractions, earlier employment was concentrated largely on agriculture and the growing of tomatoes, lemons, oranges and pimentos, and where lengthy periods of drought are commonplace.
“Murcia can be a pioneering region in researching the impact of golfing growth on water resources…and a model for golf tourism...” he said, but added: “Where is this extra water we require coming from? If we don’t do things properly we won’t get proper results... only criticism from the media.”
Or, as Jonathan Smith of Golf Environment Europe said:
"Environment issues are fundamental to the future of golf.
Doing nothing is NOT an option.”
