Blow drying sand

Wednesday, 3:29 pm

By Kate

Jun

20

2007

It was another work day for the lad. We arrived at the country club at 2 o’clock, just after a rousing rain ‘event’. There was still mist and about 120% humidity in the air. Nevertheless, as we wound our way through the greens and lush landscaping, my car received an extra shower from the sprinkler system that was going full blast. And...even more perplexing, there were employees on the golf greens with their leaf blowers strapped to their backs. They waved the nozzles of those things around over the sand in the sand traps. Blow drying the sand? Removing the rain droplet pockmarks in the sand? What?

I assume the sprinkler system is set to timers and they may, unfortunately, click on just at the time of maximum rainfall. Or rainfalls. Or three day storms (as I’ve noted in the past), but don’t these things have some kind of manual override? I dunno, it may be deemed impractical to mess around with the timer system even when it’s pouring rain. It’s a wretched waste, in any event.

The sand blow drying just amazed me, though. How many gallons of fuel were these things sucking up? A tidy bundle of it, I’m sure. Every sand trap had some hapless employee doing the important job.

I’m not a fan of golf. I try to be reasonably polite about it and not step on golf aficionado toes. Golfers are a passionate lot and can make case after case for the importance of the game. But you know what? I feel just a little too cynical to restrain myself today. Golf may be everything a passionate golfer says it is, but it’s also one of the most worthless endeavors on the face of the earth. There. I said it. For the privilege of chasing a little white ball around expansive greens, the maintenance of those greens requires copious amounts of water, thousands of gallons of fuel to run the dozens of riding lawnmowers all over them and to run the silly leaf blowers, and the electricity to recharge the umpty zillion golf carts every night so no one has to walk. Oh, and the sprinkler system is run off electricity, too.  Multiply that by how many hundreds or thousands of golf courses across this country (or planet) and there we are.

Every doggone golf course should have big signs that say “Your continued golfing pleasure made possible by the thousands of responsible citizens who are conserving resources so that you don’t have to. You’re welcome.”

So, how many toes did I just stomp on? Sorry about that. Blow drying the sand was the last straw.