Posted on 09/02/2014 10:58:14 AM PDT by nickcarraway
Tolka Rover/Flickr Four of San Francisco's nine golf courses surround Lake Merced. President Obama has gotten a bit of flak for spending a lot of time on the golf course this summer. But here in San Francisco, it’s the golf courses themselves that are causing controversy.
Earlier this month, Priceonomics’s Alex Mayyasi wondered, “Why Does San Francisco Have So Many Golf Courses?” while noting that the 47-square-mile city actually has nine golf courses, plus a tenth outside the city limits that’s under its jurisdiction. In light of the housing emergency, Mayyasi framed the question as one of space allocation, because the 700 acres taken up by fairways and bunkers constitutes 2 percent of the city’s buildable land, which amounts to a giveaway for the benefit of a very few.
But a better question might be, Why do we have so many golf courses operating during a state of exceptional drought? When ordinary residents face the prospect of fines for hosing poop off the sidewalk, leaning on Hetch Hetchy to keep the greens so green sounds outright frivolous. Yet it’s not a case of elite clubs shielding themselves off from the rules that apply to everyone else. Rec and Park runs five of the nine, plus that outlying course in Pacifica, and Presidio Golf Course, while private, is open to the public.
To be fair, an accompanying photo in a Chronicle article on rationing shows a Lincoln Park Golf Course fairway with bare patches that look nearly as golden-brown as the rest of the state in August. So it’s not as if S.F. is maintaining lush, pristine fairways. However, the half-century-old Gleneagles GC, a nine-hole course in McLaren Park, is struggling to pay its massive water bills. Having limped forward on a month-to-month basis since the lease ran out in November, manager Tom Hsieh worked out an arrangement with the Public Utilities Commission and Rec and Park to subsidize half its water bill, some 8.9 million gallons a year. (It’s especially ironic considering Gleaneagles’ namesake golf course sits in rainy Scotland, where this would never be an issue.)
If a single nine-hole course uses almost 18 million gallons a year, then the combined five city-owned courses, with their total of 63 holes — 18 holes each at Harding and Lincoln Park, and nine at Gleneagles, Flemming and Golden Gate Park — likely consume around 125 million gallons of water annually. That’s 342,000 gallons a day.
The Sierra Club estimates that the average San Franciscan uses 108 gallons per day. So the five public golf courses, which serve comparatively few people, are the functional equivalent of almost 3200 extra city residents, showering, flushing and washing their cars. We’re being instructed to rat out neighbors who hydrate their lawns under cover of darkness. So why isn’t there more of an outcry about San Francisco’s golf courses, and the public subsidy for their water use?
Well, BHO might visit any day for fund raising.
What is the market price of water in a drought and are the golfers willing to pay for it?
Right in the lumberyard
With San Francisco being a sanctuary city, maybe if they get rid of all the illegals that don’t belong there or even in the USA, there would be water for everybody.
What a frickin bigot.
Has the author considered just how many low income immigrant(illegal) would be affected if they had no fairways, greens and grounds to maintain?
Pelosi, Boxer and Feinstein use more water than all the golf course combined.
A lot of the ‘water features’ on golf courses pull double duty. The courses drain into these ponds...and the ponds are pumped out for irrigation.
I see no problem doing this...but if they are using city water, while other users are restricted...that’s a problem.
It's the middle class that's going to lose out with any surcharges.
Can’t they use salt water?
Shut down the bath houses. That’s where all the water is going. All those homosexuals taking baths with their buddies.
“Rub a dub dub
Three men in a tub
Another day in San Francisco.”
Correct. Also, many golf courses use treated waste water to irrigate the greens. I don’t know if that is the case with the SF golf courses but I would not be surprised.
Yeah, they might have their own water rights. Then they can take out as much as they want. But, if they are using .gov water and everyone else having to shower on odd days, then they might have some problems.
Let’s get serious. Does anyone “need” anything? No. Get rid of everything. Only then will will we have nirvhana.
Ya don’t have to worry about the grass is greener on the other side when nobody has grass.
Where my parents live in SC, they don’t water the golf courses much. In the dryer season they do get brown. They then get green again after the rainy season. No one seems to care. I think the putting greens are still pretty green but the rest seems brown for a few months. Why can’t we do that in CA?
No, salt water would kill the grass.
In fact, Round Up and Ortho’s Ground Clear the active ingredient that kills ALL vegetation is SALT.
No water for the fields of crops, but plenty for Golf Courses.
Doncha just love liberalism?
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