Andy DevaneyEngland Golf, BIGGA and the GCMA want clubs across the country to reveal how they source, store and manage water, building the evidence golf will need as supplies come under greater pressure.
Golf courses can survive plenty of indignities. A badly placed bunker. Members discussing Stimpmeter readings as if negotiating nuclear disarmament. Even the occasional summer when the word green becomes more aspirational than descriptive.
Running short of water is rather more serious.
England Golf, the British and International Golf Greenkeepers Association (BIGGA) and the Golf Club Management Association (GCMA) are urging clubs to take part in a golf club water census designed to establish how the sport currently sources, stores and uses one of its most important resources.
The exercise is intended to fill a surprisingly significant hole in golf’s knowledge: nobody yet has a consistent national picture of how dependent clubs are on mains supply, boreholes, rivers, lakes and stored water, or how well equipped they are to cope when access becomes restricted.
And without that picture, golf is attempting to plan for future droughts with rather too much guesswork.
Golf needs to know where its water comes from
Independent research agency Sporting Insights has been commissioned to conduct the census as part of the Golf Sector Resilience and Alternative Water Supply Options project.
The wider project is being led by the Retailer Wholesaler Group’s Water Efficiency Sub-Group, bringing wholesale and retail water companies together in partnership with the Environment Agency.
Clubs will be asked about water consumption, supply sources, measurement, storage, infrastructure and possible alternative supplies. The research will also examine how restrictions have affected clubs and what investment they may be considering.
Some greenkeepers will have those answers immediately. Others decidedly will not, which is why BIGGA is encouraging them to involve club managers, secretaries, committees or whoever possesses the necessary information and make sure a response is submitted.
It sounds administrative. Its consequences are anything but.
Drought restrictions are already reaching golf courses
A previous State of the Nation assessment highlighted increasing pressure on England’s water resources alongside the absence of consistent information about golf’s position.
Public water consumption per head in England has a statutory target to fall by 20 per cent by 2038 compared with the 2019-20 baseline, while water companies are under increasing pressure to reduce non-household demand.
For golf clubs, this is hardly an abstract policy debate.
Drought restrictions and abstraction controls can affect access to mains water, boreholes, rivers, lakes and other sources. Long dry spells place additional strain on irrigation systems and whatever water a club has managed to store.
The difficulty is that there is no standard golf course. One club may have a reservoir and borehole; another may remain heavily reliant on the mains. Geography, infrastructure and water-company region all change the calculation.
BIGGA Chief Executive Jim Croxton put the problem plainly: “Water resilience is one of the defining challenges facing golf.”
He added: “We know clubs are starting from very different positions. Some have reservoirs, boreholes or opportunities to harvest and store water, while others remain heavily dependent on the mains.”
That variation is precisely why national averages can only tell part of the story.
Better data could strengthen golf’s case
The immediate purpose of the census is evidence.
Golf’s representative bodies need to understand how much water clubs consume, how it is measured, where it comes from and which facilities have the infrastructure to store it or seek alternatives.
That evidence could then inform discussions over efficiency, resilience and future supply options. Suitable answers will inevitably differ from club to club; a solution that makes sense for one site may be impossible at another.
It also matters when the sport sits down with water companies, regulators and government.
As Croxton said: “A strong response will give the entire golf industry a much firmer evidence base when speaking to water companies, government and regulators. The findings can also help direct future guidance and investment towards the areas where they will have the greatest effect.”
Golf can make arguments about its sporting, economic and wider value. When the subject is access to an increasingly pressured resource, however, arguments become considerably more persuasive when accompanied by numbers.
The census is only useful if clubs answer it
That is the slightly unglamorous catch.
A national census with patchy participation risks producing a patchy national picture. The more clubs that respond, the clearer the sector’s understanding of its vulnerabilities becomes.
The findings are expected to help examine where efficiency can improve, where resilience can be strengthened and where alternative water supplies could be developed.
For individual clubs, the exercise may also expose an uncomfortable question before the next prolonged dry spell asks it rather more forcefully: exactly how secure is the water supply keeping the course alive?
Golf has spent generations thinking obsessively about drainage. Increasingly, it may need to become just as good at thinking about what happens when there is rather less to drain.
