Welcome back! You’ve reached Part 2 of our comparison of simulator golf and traditional golf on the environment. If you weren’t keeping score at home sim golf is currently up 2 – 0 or 2 – nil if you’re a European football fan. If you missed Part 1 sim golf took the lead with easy victories in space requirements and water usage. I have a feeling that the lead will continue to grow.
Pesticides
Like I said, an easy victory here. We don’t need thousands of pounds of pesticides to keep our courses green and lush. There's no need to keep weeds, pesky rodents, and insects at bay. In fact, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that we don’t use any. Without doing any research, I’m willing to make an official statement on this.
It's worth noting that the US is the biggest user of pesticides. Canada and European countries have much more stringent laws and, thus, have a better track record. Not perfect, but better. The negative effects of pesticides on the land, ground and drinking water, and even the golfers themselves are well-documented. Maybe stop chewing on blades of grass and golf tees and keep your cigar or cigarette off the ground when you play your next round. And get in the habit of washing your hands after the round. Better safe than sorry. Feel free to never wash your hands playing sim golf. You should occasionally, but for completely different reasons. Don’t be nasty.
Wildlife
It's cool seeing birds, deer, maybe even bears or alligators depending on where you play golf, but golf courses are not the friendliest establishments for wildlife. I'm going in circles here, but the space needed for golf courses, clubhouses, and parking lots not only displaces animals but also destroys their habitats. Then you throw in pesticides and fertilizer, which negatively affect the health of wildlife. Like I said, circles. Not to say that this doesn’t happen in the agricultural realm as well, but some could argue that agriculture is a bit more important.
I'll freely admit it's not nearly as cool seeing a computer-generated animal strut across the fairways on a sim golf course, but I can confidently say that no animals were harmed, displaced, and no habitats were destroyed in the creation of our virtual courses. That's a quick shutout victory for the environmental impact of sim golf compared to traditional golf.
This is a topic that could really be delved into, and someone much smarter than myself could probably write a dissertation on this topic using empirical evidence, research, and creating bar graphs and pie charts, and all that cool stuff. It sounds very time-consuming and boring, and I'm clearly not getting my PhD anytime soon. After doing my limited research, I will say that you can pretty much find a counterargument for everything here, many of which are quite weak, but there may be validity in some of the claims.
The main goal here is to provide you, a future simulator golf owner, with additional support to justify your decision. Feel free to use the environmental impact, or lack thereof, as one of your reasons to validate your choice. I’m here for you, no need thank me.