The grass isn’t the only thing that’s green about golf courses these days. The industry has undertaken tremendous efforts to develop courses that use less water and chemicals, preserve wetlands and forests, protect wildlife, and even reclaim degraded land. Here are nine environmentally responsible layouts you can feel good about playing, even if you play them badly.
To the Manoir Born
Two hours northeast of Quebec City, Fairmont’s Le Manoir Richelieu Golf Club offers proof that a luxury brand can operate with an environmental ethic. With 18 holes designed in 1925 by Herbert Strong, and nine more added recently by Darrell Huxham, the Manoir courses are part of Fairmont’s Green Partnership Program. You’ll also see blue here: the sparkling blue of the St. Lawrence River, which the golf holes seem to plunge into via dramatic elevation changes. fairmontgolf.com
Six Degrees of Turf Management
Two hours west of Kansas City, Kan., Colbert Hills Golf Course — designed by tour pro Jim Colbert — is affiliated with Kansas State University. Researchers from the school study the impact of golf course operations on the environment, and students who can’t make the golf team can still earn a degree in turf management. colberthills.com
Pushing the Manila Envelope
Forest Hills Golf and Country Club, in Antipolo City, the Philippines, east of Manila, is certified by Audubon International as a Cooperative Sanctuary course because it meets required standards for protecting water quality, conserving natural resources, and providing habitat for wildlife, among other qualifications. Forest Hills includes 18 holes designed by Jack Nicklaus, with an added nine by Arnold Palmer. golflivingph.com
Raining Champion
Scheduled to open this spring, the Golf Club at Rainmakers, a Robert Trent Jones II course three hours from Albuquerque, is named in honor of the 12th-century shamans who were responsible for managing the precious commodity of water. A weather station controls low-distribution sprinkler heads that water only when necessary, and all fairways and greens have been treated with a polymer that absorbs, holds, and cools moisture, thereby requiring 30 percent less water from irrigation. rainmakersusa.com
Graphite Shafts
Southeast of Lexington, Ky., StoneCrest Golf Course is built on the former site of a vast strip mine. Though the mountaintop was cleared of all vegetation and blasted away during coal-mining days, today you can blast a driver off the tees of a links-style municipal course and dig deep for pars among 50 bunkers and five ponds. stonecrestky.com
Family Planning
At Oitavos Dunes, outside Lisbon, Arthur Hills/Steve Forrest helped create the first Audubon-certified Gold Signature Sanctuary golf course in Europe, on land owned for generations by the Champalimaud family. The architects protected forests of umbrella pines, rolling dunes, and coastal transition areas, and no buildings will ever block the ocean views from this course, where the challenges match the natural beauty. quintadamarinha-oitavosgolfe.pt
Firing at the Pin
Just up Lake Michigan from Milwaukee, in Sheboygan, Wis., the Straits Course at Whistling Straits sits atop an abandoned military base. Pete Dye created this windswept links venue by shaping the entire topography out of imported sand. The result is a course good enough to host the PGA Championship for the second time in 2010. destinationkohler.com
Dry Idea
Several hours south of San Diego or north of Loreto, on Mexico’s Baja Peninsula, Las Caras de Mexico Golf Course is part of a development that features 3,000 solar-powered dwellings, straw bale house construction, and other ecofriendly components. Located in an area with three inches of rainfall per year, the golf course uses a salt-tolerant hybrid grass that can be watered from brackish wells. An additional 17,500 acres on the site are managed as green space. lascarasdemexico.com
The Green Course
Most golfers know the Black Course at Bethpage State Park in Farmingdale, N.Y. (two hours east of New York City), as a venue for the US Open. But this world-class municipal facility’s Green Course — designed in 1928 by Devereux Emmett — has plans to become even greener. Management is currently experimenting with the putting surfaces to determine whether they can be maintained to playable standards using fewer chemicals, or none at all. nysparks.state.ny.us/golf
— Jeff Wallach
Getting There: All the destinations covered in “Front Nine” can be reached by flying Continental Airlines. To book your trip, contact Continental Airlines Vacations at covacations.com.
