Golf in the Coastal Zone

Mike Wood, Mike Wood Consult

In recent months, the debate surrounding golf's relationship with the coastline has been reinvigorated. Central to this are a number of high profile golf developments and the launch of a new Links Forum.

These have focussed attention and debate on the relationship between golf and coastal sand dunes in particular.

GEE feels that this is an important issue, and that until the golf community better understands the influences behind coastline dynamics, it will not be able to determine sustainable approaches to the development of new courses or the management of existing courses within such sensitive areas. We are not suggesting a blanket restriction on golf development within sand dunes, but we are advocating the need for more thorough understanding of the influences on the coastal zone, and also to consider a new perspective on golf design and management in such areas.

In this article we re-print a short modified extract from Mike Wood’s recently published letter in Golf Course Architecture Magazine. We thought Mike’s letter touched on some very important aspects about how we approach coastal sites. Further features on this important part of golf’s history and future will be published in the FOReUM.

“There is a danger in much of the current golf and coastline debate that we are seen as an industry looking for ways to work against the environment rather than with it – for example, to stabilise mobile sand dunes - so that a golf course can be built. 
 
The golf industry needs to be very careful to make sure that we fully understand the natural coastal processes (over the long term) before we choose to develop this type of site.  As the supply of links sites in the British Isles becomes exhausted, this issue is going to become more and more common. 
 
A wealth of experience has been built up on this subject relating to golf courses in Scotland, Ireland, England and throughout Europe. The bottom line in my view is that we need to accept that sand dune systems are inherently unstable environments - particularly the young "yellow" dunes close to the sea, which also tend to be the most spectacular. 

Intrinsically, these are not good sites for golf development – certainly if we view the courses we are developing as fixed features which should never change as the land changes. Sand dunes do change, either through erosion or accretion, at unpredictable intervals and rates. If we try to protect them, especially by hard engineering, we only move the problem elsewhere, damage sensitive ecological relationships, and spoil the amenity of the beaches. Despite their obvious attractiveness, we need to manage our enthusiasm for them!
 
If we insist on using them, rather than using the more stable parts of the system (like the Old Course, etc, sited on the older "grey" dunes) the only sustainable approach is to embrace the processes at work, perhaps harnessing them by techniques such as sediment recharge -bringing in sand from another source, preferably from the same sediment "cell". 

This would definitely only be for those with deep pockets, but done sensitively, it could conceivably result in a whole new innovatory genre of golf design, one where greens, indeed complete holes, could change from year to year.  (Does that sound so different from what happens on some affluent developments?)
  
In a nutshell - instead of "plugging-up" blow-outs we need to find a way of incorporating them in a new style of design!”

Mike Wood is an environmental scientist and golf course architect. He is the EIGCA representative on the European Forum for Sustainable Golf and Convenor of the EIGCA’s Environment Committee. He has undertaken various research studies on coastal dynamics.