Race Reed April 3, 2026 Working at a Golf Course and Thinking About the Land Differently (Free Choice)

 I work at a golf course and since taking this class I cannot look at it the same way anymore. Golf courses are incredibly resource intensive. The amount of water used to keep the grass that particular shade of green is significantly larger than I thought at first, and the pesticides and fertilizers required to maintain that level of appearance are not exactly gentle on the surrounding ecosystem.

There's something almost ironic about it. People go to golf courses partly because they're beautiful and green and feel natural, but maintaining that appearance requires constantly fighting against what nature would actually do with that land. It connects to what we've been reading about prosaic versus mythopoeic relationships with the environment. A golf course is about as prosaic as it gets, land managed entirely for human aesthetic preference and recreation rather than ecological health.


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