We spend a lot of time talking about the many, many ways golf impacts people’s lives through the violence of blunt force trauma. Today we’ll talk about the quiet violence golf courses inflict on our neighborhoods every single day.

Golf courses are everywhere. They are in our cities, our suburbs, and our outdoor sanctuaries. The golf lobby markets them as peaceful getaways that can even be healing or restorative.

That could not be further from the truth.

Even on the rare day there are no golfers on a course, the greens themselves are slowly poisoning all of us. The runoff from golf courses is disastrous for our water tables and our endangered species. These threats are so serious there was a study conducted by the Office of the Attorney General of New York, which concluded:

Anyone on the golf course or nearby is at risk. Pesticide applicators, either professional contractors or golf course workers, can be exposed to these poisons during storage, mixing and application.

Golfers, often playing shortly after pesticides have been applied, can be exposed directly to the pesticides on the turf, as well as to pesticide vapors and mists.

People living near a golf course may be affected by sprays and dusts blown from the golf course onto their property and into their homes.

Finally, pesticides applied to the turf may run off into surface waters or leach down to groundwater, which can then expose people to contaminated drinking water. These people may live far from the place where pesticides were used.

From “Toxic Fairways” a report by NY Attorney General Andrew Cuomo

Worse, the artificial monoculture of grasses on golf courses create breeding grounds for vermin who can carry disease off the course.

And that’s just our physical health. Golf courses are also fundamentally bad for our mental health. For non-golfers (and ex-golfers) they represent spaces we are not welcome. For golfers, the mental impact of the course can be much worse.

It may be that the worst mental health impact of all is actually on the very people tasked with keeping the courses perfectly manicured. These people’s whole livelihood is tied up in poisoning the rest of us - and they are berated by golfers when they haven’t done a good enough job.

We simply cannot accept this any longer. Golf courses are fundamentally bad for the health of everyone around them. We have a responsibility to end this quiet violence - we must ban golf and golf courses now.