Sprol

Outside of Las Vegas, the desert blooms in Perennial Ryegrass and Creeping Bentgrass at the Las Vegas Paiute Golf Resort. For a moderate greens fee you can enjoy a game on the award winning tribal-owned property. After researching it a little more, I actually kind of want to go there, and I haven’t played golf in years. There is something awe inspiring about a huge lawn in the middle of the worst land that the U.S. could find to “reserve.”

But doesn’t it look a little out of place from space? In this image it may still be under construction. Maybe they haven’t built the centerpiece yet. If you look right in the middle there’s a big round space for it.

It’s either a miracle or an incredible waste of water, depending on how you look at it. It feels like it should be better than another casino. As a Californian, I’m used to seeing this a little differently. Here, the native tribes fight to develop the casinos, and the superstars, like Clint Eastwood, fight to build the golf courses.

Golf courses spur development of new areas and contribute to sprawl. What developers typically try to do is to wrap condominiums, showcase homes, and hotels around each fairway. This causes an increased demand for roads and other commerical services like gas stations, hair salons, restaurants, sewers, telephone poles, etc. The open spaces are filled in. The demand for water increases as does the runoff of chemical fertilizers used to treat the vast grassy monoculture. These fertilizers are made from anhydrous ammonia, which is made from natural gas.

Just look at Carmel, California. When the Pebble Beach resort was built, the reason given was to preserve the old-growth coastal Monterey Pine forest. Now, however, the local big shots, led by Clint Eastwood, are trying to destroy selfsame forest. This will enable them to build hundreds of huge beautiful expensive mansions, which billionare owners buy, give names to, and then never visit. According to one such hotshot, it’s “real estate as art” property. I’ve been to Carmel, and it’s no desert. But even there they have water issues with the existing course. Hopefully Clint won’t get his wish to knock down the trees.