Abandoned golf courses are being reclaimed by nature

Voice over: Michael Robles
Writer: Neil Lewis
Video editor: Lance Keller
Abandoned golf courses
are being reclaimed by
nature
Editor’s Note: Call to Earth is a CNN editorial series
committed to reporting on the environmental challenges
facing our planet, together with the solutions.
Rolex’s
Perpetual Planet initiative
has partnered with CNN to drive
awareness and education around key sustainability issues
and to inspire positive action.
Golf courses, despite occupying large green spaces, are
not necessarily good for the environment. Land is often
cleared to make way for a fairway
and maintaining the
pristine turf often requires a lot of water, regular mowing
and the spraying of fertilizers and pesticides - none of
which is good for biodiversity.
In the US, with
the number of course closures outweighing
new openings
every year since 2006, some are
questioning how we should use these huge spaces - and
asking whether, instead of golf, nature should be left to run
its course.
Conservation nonprofits and local authorities are looking
to acquire golf courses that have been abandoned due to
high maintenance costs, low player numbers or other
reasons, and repurpose them into landscapes that boost
biodiversity and build natural defenses against climate
change.
These spaces provide “huge opportunities from a
conservation perspective,” says Guillermo Rodriguez,
California state director of The Trust for Public Land (TPL),
a conservation organization which is rewilding three of the
state’s former courses.
“It’s a multiple win,” he continues. “You increase public
access by taking former private golf courses (and) turning
them into public properties ... (you return) water back into
rivers and streams and create a better habitat for the
endangered species that we have in California.”
San Geronimo, California
Take
San Geronimo
, an 18-hole course in northern
California’s Marin County, located on two waterways,
which are home to endangered
coho salmon
and
steelhead trout
. Since the course’s construction in 1965,
much of the water from San Geronimo and Larsen Creek
was being diverted to provide irrigation for the course,
affecting fish populations in the area, says Rodriguez.
In 2018, TPL purchased the 157-acre site and began
converting the area back into its natural state: turning off
the irrigation, removing culverts and dams built to capture
water and starting to restore the habitat by planting native
species. According to TPL, the rewilding process could
take up to 10 years, but
there are signs that wildlife is
already bouncing back, with bobcats spotted roaming the
area.
Rodriguez admits that initially TPL’s plan received some
strong opposition from the public, especially from the
golfers. But after efforts to involve locals in the design and
opening hiking and biking trails in the area attitudes are
changing. Now known as San Geronimo Commons, the
site is a thriving center for the local community, he says.
Ocean Meadows, California
Further down the coast in Santa Barbara is another of
TPL’s acquisitions:
Ocean Meadows
. The nine-hole
course was built in the 1960s on the site of a wetland. To
create it, developers filled the plain with 500,000 cubic
yards of soil.
TPL purchased the 64-acre area in 2013 and started
restoring the wetlands, removing the soil that had been
added during construction and planting native vegetation.
Since then, migratory birds have replaced birdies, and at
least two pairs of
threatened western snowy plovers
are
successfully breeding in the area’s mudflats.
With the extreme shifts in weather patterns in recent
years, especially in California, the benefits of having a
wetland rather than a golf course have become clear, says
Rodriguez. “Floodplains are able to kind of capture this
water, protect infrastructure, protect other low-lying
communities, and really let nature be an important
solution,” he says.
Rancho Cañada, California
Most recently, TPL acquired
Rancho Cañada
, a 190-acre
private golf course located in Monterey. It wants to widen
and restore the riverbed and banks of the Carmel River,
which runs through the course, helping to protect
downstream neighborhoods from flooding.
Crucially, the site will become part of a wider network of
protected land, enabling a wildlife corridor from Ventana to
Fort Ord. “The ability to remove fencing and create much
more cohesion between the previous golf course and the
surrounding public lands, really builds that connectivity
back,” says Rodriguez.
Cascade Valley, Ohio
TPL is not the only organization on a mission to rewild golf
courses. In Akron, Ohio, Summit Metro Parks acquired the
195-acre Valley View Golf Course in 2016, returning it to
its natural state. In doing so it connected three local parks

[@richardzita8096]

Great expose on a creative way to help restore underutilized land back into productive, ecologically based uses. We need lots more restoration projects like this to help mitigate habitat destruction, especially near population centers and wildlife corridors.

[@leenielsen7928]

Amen! The citizens of this country are coming to their senses. It will be a joyous era~

[@mrbisse1]

Well done! I'll be sharing this. My take on what to do with them is different, but ultimately motivated the same way.

[@keithmcphail1152]

One of the great things about nudging a golf course back to native species and providing pollinators with new habitat is that there are already premade walkways for the humans to admire the flora and fauna. Other than the concrete or asphalt driving cart paths, the humans tend to make their own paths through the low grasses and those become the best paths for seeing nature up close. huge reduction in any kind of maintenance (mow once a year, in the late Fall) and provide some seed (money) to encourage native species to take over from the fescue and other golf course related flora. In 5 years, you'll have grouse, fox, hawks/kestrels, rabbits, moles/voles/mice, and lots and lots of bees and butterflies.

[@markgarcia123]

HI Mikey. Cool name change for the channel. Hope you are doing well. In regards to the story, I would personally like to see more quality 9 hole courses and less 18 hole courses. As you well know, it can take 5-6 hours on the weekends to play some of the public courses in SoCal.

[@ILUVGOLF]

Hey dude, yes, agreed. I would like to see more nine hole courses also. How is Rancho Park? It’s been three years since I’ve been there.

[@KCH55]

I've always been up more of a putt putt person. I kind of like the kitschiness of it. I see way too many golf courses. And surprisingly less putt putt areas. I honestly hope to see more of this removal of golf courses. It always just seems like a waste of land.
I mean it would be great if they could create a more environmentally friendly version of golfing.