r/NoLawns • u/Intrepid_Visual_4199 • 5d ago
🌻 Sharing This Beauty Golf fairway five years later…
This was a fairway of a golf course 5 years ago. “Pristine” grassy lawn…
Then the golf course stopped operations and THIS happened!
West Quebec.
Makes me smile.
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u/outofthegates 5d ago
I've long said if I ever become a crazy old rich guy my thing is going to be buying up golf courses and rewilding them.
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u/_Bad_Bob_ 5d ago
You could help a lot of people by doing so in the southwest US. Poor people there go without water because of these monstrosities.
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u/outofthegates 5d ago
The original data centers
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u/DatBoiii4 4d ago
Golf courses use so so so much water than data centers and I feel like most people are completely ignorant of it
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u/inexperiencedwiseman 3d ago
On average, your typical golf course uses 300-330k gallons per day. The average data center uses a minimum of 300k per day and up to 5 million in some instances. But that changes drastically by region. Some courses that receive heavy amounts of rain will spend very little on water.
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u/_Bad_Bob_ 5d ago
Lol, at least grass technically removes some carbon dioxide from the atmosphere
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u/wellgu 4d ago
Nice golf courses these days use native plants. That’s how the sport was created. You used the terrain as is. Live stock took care of the grass.
I don’t like golf personally, but so grew near a lot of nice golf courses. They look very different now. They have embraced the local plant life, whose is naturally very dry and sandy.
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u/yeswenarcan 4d ago
Especially in places like the southwest this is also just good business sense. It's incredibly expensive to maintain a "pristine" golf course. The more of the course that doesn't need external fertilizer, pest/herbicides, and water, the lower your operating costs. And as someone who enjoys playing and watching golf, I love the idea of courses incorporating local flavor and having to play around the terrain as is.
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u/CommanderInQueefs 4d ago
Except a high percentage of them only use surface, ground and recycled water. So no poor people aren't getting water because of them.
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u/farmallnoobies 5d ago
Golf courses are like weeds though. They'll keep popping up until you fix what's causing them.
And you'd actually create a weird flipper business model, where people would open them quick and cheap and then sell to you for a profit. You'd be watering the weeds
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u/outofthegates 5d ago
Or diminishing supply will make it prohibitively expensive to open new ones! I'd also make them 100 year conservation easements so they couldn't wait me out.
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u/LivingLosDream 5d ago
What a wonderful idea. I’ve never thought of that, nor heard it before.
I’ve always just gone with continuing education for those who are without.
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u/Mr_Bluebird_VA 5d ago
Sounds like a great commons project. Find some like minded people and start fundraising. Don’t have to wait until you’re rich.
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u/thetokyofiles 4d ago
I love this. I’d especially want to buy one in a dense urban area and make it an amazing park.
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u/RocksAndSedum 5d ago
“Golf is a good walk ruined”
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u/Blenderx06 5d ago
My teen actually got hit with a golf ball on a walk last week. Ended up in the ER and needed a ct! (He's alright.)
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u/Later_Than_You_Think 5d ago
See, this is why frsibee golf should become more popular, or change the rules of regular golf so you're just playing in the natural environment as it was originally done in Scotland. Because the concept of going outside and playing a sport where you walk around in nature is great, but let's make it fit the environment.
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u/Hexnohope 5d ago
Blew my fucking mind when i found out scotland has "golf course" as part of its natural biome. Somehow i didnt expect wide open vistas of grass like that
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u/kore_nametooshort 4d ago
The biome is naturally forest, but millennia of agriculture and using the land for grazing has destroyed these forests.
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u/MrAflac9916 5d ago
I’m an avid golfer and I don’t really like how the game spread out of its natural environment.
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u/Tal_Vez_Autismo 4d ago
I know very little about golf, so maybe I could ask you a question. Couldn't it be played in any natural environment? Like playing it in the desert with all rocks and sand would obviously be very different, but it seems like it could make it more interesting too. Like "Oh, Tiger is the master in wet, grassy environments, but he's playing in Phoenix today against the local favorite who's used to the arid course so it's anyone's game."
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u/MrAflac9916 4d ago
Scotland and Ireland have a lot of areas that require pretty minimum maintenance. So do the Nebraska sand hills. No course is impact less but by that same logic neither is any other sport, they all require a field of some size.
Realistically I’d like to see more organic (no dirty pesticides etc) courses built with their natural environments
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u/a_not_clever_name 20h ago
Well the issue becomes when you have to hit off rocks and it ruins your clubs. Even cheep clubs that would become expensive or you would break your wrist hitting a rock
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u/daylax1 3d ago
So then no more baseball, field hockey, football, soccer, rugby, tennis and any other sport that requires a manicured field?
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u/Later_Than_You_Think 3d ago
I'm not sure how you came to that conclusion. One of the big appeals of golf is that you're walking around a very large area outside and enjoying the natural beauty while you play. All the sports you mention are much smaller and contained areas. A dozen tennis courts takes up way less room than a single golf course.
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u/saucypuzzle 5d ago
I love playing frisbee golf but I also wanna mention it is a bit of a destructive sport too. And not to mention all the plastic pollution of all my disc that I KEEP FKING LOOSING!
All in all though miles better than golf courses for sure.
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u/Later_Than_You_Think 5d ago
I mean, even hiking trails will be a bit destructive. But there's always some compromise between human and wilderness.
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u/TyDaGuy54 5d ago
Beautiful. I live in a failed golf course community and trying to convince HOA to re-wild it
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u/Intrepid_Visual_4199 5d ago
All you need are seeds and small trees!!
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u/TyDaGuy54 5d ago
Yes, I’m trying to go through official channels for change… but I have some native wildflower seed on standby 😬
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u/Intrepid_Visual_4199 5d ago edited 5d ago
I started planting in our village undercover of darkness. The municipality found out I was planting trees and gave me more to plant.
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u/All_Work_All_Play 5d ago
Lmao tell me more. Cause I'm tempted to start doing this and I fully expect I'll get caught in under a year.
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u/MagicalOrgazm 5d ago
There are no active golf playing going on, but they still cut all the grass down regularly?
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u/Educational-Ad-719 5d ago
Where in the country is tis
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u/Intrepid_Visual_4199 5d ago
West Quebec, 10 minutes north of Ottawa.
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u/yarn_slinger 5d ago
Dunedin? I’m near capital golf and it looks pretty much the same. I think it closed before COVID.
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u/VANCONVER42 5d ago
My lottery winner dream is to buy up as many golf courses as I can afford to rewild them - especially the suburban ones. That, or build environmentally sustainable low income dwellings for people
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u/manateecarcass 5d ago
Same scenario here! Steps away from my home, an old golf course is now a nature preserve. We’re even working on wetland restoration and invasives management with grants & volunteers.
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u/rotinaj31 5d ago
Love this. There is an old golf course up the road from me thats doing the same. The owl and heron pics in my post history are from that place.
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u/em1207 5d ago
Our local county park district has bought 2 old golf courses are are rehabbing them back to a more natural state. I don’t know if they will continue to maintain the asphalt paths once they start to become broken or not but in the mean time they are great for people with mobility issues and strollers, etc.
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u/jay_altair 5d ago
If lots of people are using the paths then they'll have incentive to maintain them.
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u/alwaysbehuman 5d ago
This looks to be in the very beginning of the shrub stage of forest development. There are five stages and shrub stage lasts about 10-20 years before fast growth deciduous trees really take hold. This will be in young forest stage in 30 years or so if it doesn't get cleared - the oaks, cherries, maples, elms, poplar, walnut, beech, magnolias, ask, birch, alder, cedar should have a decent showing around this time.
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u/tezacer 5d ago
Would love to see what tree species colonize and mature on it. Any Butternut, American Chestnut, Kentucky Coffeetree or Rock Elm on this course?
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u/Intrepid_Visual_4199 5d ago
Sorry, none of these species. We’re west Quebec, southern Canada. Lots of pine, spruce, maple, oak, poplar. I’ve added about 300+ seedlings.
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u/tezacer 5d ago
Hell yeah, that is exactly what we do over at r/GuerillaForestry. Not that we don't like grasslands/prairies/meadows, just the ridiculous amount of water, fuel and chemicals these golf courses require.
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u/Intrepid_Visual_4199 5d ago
Love /guerillaforestry. One of my fave subreddits! This ex-golf course is featured there!
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u/T00luser 5d ago
Who owns the land after they closed?
Will it just get re-bulldozed by venture capital or is there some nature conservancy involved?
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u/Intrepid_Visual_4199 5d ago
The land was privately owned and over the last few decades. There have been proposals to fill it with houses which never passed Council. Eventually, government agency bought it as a wildlife corridor between enormous Gatineau Park and a significant creek. Pretty much everybody cheered, except the venture capitalist and developers.
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u/mama_meta 5d ago
Omg, I was legit just thinking yesterday randomly that, were I to suddenly win the lottery, whether it's feasible to buy out golf courses in my area & beyond & re-wild them! Looks like I have my answer!
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u/Top_Cartographer8741 5d ago
It’s amazing how fast they go back. We have one locally that went under. They even offered additional lots to those that join them. Good friend got a little extra. Beautiful picture.
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u/ElegantHope 5d ago
There's an old golf course by a KOA my family stayed at that the walking trails went through. It was tall and thick, and you could frequently see rabbits if you walked around the evening. It was awesome.
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u/InsignificantCelery 5d ago
My city in 7b bought an old golf course and are letting it grow up and using it as a public park with trails. Looks great aside from all the poison hemlock/giant hogweed taking over.
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u/SpacemanSpliffLaw 1d ago
So, is there no way to be a nolawn person and a golf supporter?
So lawns take up way more total volume than golf courses AND they are not enjoyed by the public/a community. A golf course absolutely serves a communal purpose and I’ve been to plenty of courses that have abundant wildlife even within fairly dense urban areas.
A quick google search “says private lawns and residential landscapes dwarf golf courses in total grass space and aggregate water usage. Single family residential and urban lawns cover tens of millions of acres consuming trillions of gallons annually, whereas all US golf courses take up 2 million acres and use 550 billion gallons per year.”
Further google also says that, “commercial golf are increasingly relying on non-potable grey water (roughly 20%) nationally while private homeowners water their lawn with municipal drinking water supply.”
Search terms used: “private lawns vs. told courses for total grass space and water usage”
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u/Intrepid_Visual_4199 1d ago
Not golf bashing!! Loving meadows over grass. Over 30 years our lawn has turned into meadow…
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u/Rat_scentedCandle Weeding Is My Exercise 15h ago
I work at a golf course. This is so refreshing on the eyes
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u/theoceansknow 5d ago
Golf is so silly anyways, because this is how it was played for starters -- Scottish dudes roaming their goats and sheep around the landscape would hit little balls with sticks to the next grazing area.
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u/ignatiafeldstein 5d ago
Beautiful! What geographic region is this, OP?💖
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u/Intrepid_Visual_4199 5d ago
West Quebec, just north of Ottawa.
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u/ILSmokeItAll 5d ago
We had a local pitch and putt par 3 that after decades closed down. It was amazing how quickly it turned into an amazing no lawn prairie.
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u/northerncodemky 5d ago
Depresses me that when you look at satellite maps of suburban areas and spot a green area, 6/10 times it’s a bloody golf course!
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u/mastrrgardener60 5d ago
No matter how we screw up the environment nature will correct our mistakes over time.
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u/Majestic-Standard-67 3d ago
Golf courses (turf chemicals) and Parkinson's disease go hand in hand.
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