Golf Industry Central

The circular economy – Across Australia and New Zealand, industries are being challenged to rethink how they consume resources, manage waste, and their environmental impact.

Shredding old golf balls, as an aggregate to use in making concrete, is one example of innovation and recycling at its best! Globally, it is estimated that anywhere between 3 billion to 5 billion golf balls are lost every year, and because they are constructed with synthetic rubber cores and plastic polymer covers, these millions of errant shots have a significant environmental impact.
A single lost golf ball can take between 100 to 1,000 years to decompose, slowly leaching microplastics and chemicals into soil and water hazards over time.

This particular article links to a number of themes in BG Magazine including World Environment Day, where the need to optimise turf management programmes and water usage, has never been more important. In terms of the latter, one of our current discussions is looking at both the pros and cons of outsourcing activities to third party service providers, and this article proves that some interventions are not only valuable, but also necessary to maintain the highest possible levels of turf management.

What resonated particularly with me in this piece was not the pending course closure itself (which I hope can be averted), but rather the motivations as to why it should be kept open. The reasons shared are an eloquent summary of the benefits that can come from a properly structured and managed golf club, where though its activities and offering, it manages to reach a broader audience than just its golfers. Let’s hope they find a way forward!

It is the second round in the spat between The Golf Collective (TGC) and Golf Australia (GA) over what TGC sees as overreach in terms of GA’s use, and in what TGC sees are GA’s own interests, of its dominant position re golf handicaps. It does pose the broader question as to where golf associations need to draw the line, in terms of their activities, before they ‘damage’ the very structure of the ecosystem that they are supposed to be representing!

The region might be closing doors in one area (the range in Singapore –
see Golf Industry Asia link), but it is opening windows in others!

These types of elite level initiatives are one of the reasons why women’s golf in Asia has blossomed, and turned Japan, Korea and Thailand into golfing powerhouses on the women’s world professional golf tours.

It seems that even the genteel game of golf cannot escape the threat of hooliganism. We have seen plenty of ‘incidents’ involving younger people’ at golf estates in South Africa, but the wanton destruction experienced by Evans Head Golf Club in Australia, defies belief!

Given the need for businesses to take the ‘E’ in ESG (environmental responsibility, social responsibility and governance) ‘seriously’, when a golf facility creates an environment to conserve endangered species of wildlife within a secure sanctuary, it should be ‘big’ news; Cape Kidnappers – please take a bow.

Mike Orloff’s recent trip ‘across the pond’ from Australia to near neighbours New Zealand, offered him the chance to reconnect with friends, and colleagues, in the land of the long white cloud.

A number of insights were evident, one of which was that golf faces similar challenges, irrespective of where the region might be.

The R&A’s new programme, which is in pursuit of golf course bio-diversity in Australia and New Zealand, and which should help to reinforce the game of golf’s ability to contribute to the expansion of green spaces in general, and particularly in urban areas.