Behavioral

Golf clubs need to work on educating and informing their membership and visitors of the challenges faced with long-term water provision. This should focus on the long-term prognosis for water availability and climate change. A big aspect of education should focus on shifting the baseline of golfer expectations as the way we present our golf courses may have to change. Specifically, educating members on what is achievable within the clubs' budget and under current environmental restrictions should be spelt out. This is not going to be easy to implement or popular with golfers and is something that cannot be achieved overnight, requiring a persistent and consistent approach to education and subtle management changes. This process may benefit from the creation of 3D visualisations to show members what the course, and particularly the fairways, may look like in future years under extreme drought stress, and any remodelling of the course that may be necessary to reduce the impact of major droughts on playability or to create additional water storage capacity.

This process may benefit from the creation of 3D visualisations to show members what the course, and particularly the fairways, may look like in future years under extreme drought stress, and any remodelling of the course that may be necessary to reduce the impact of major droughts on playability or to create additional water storage capacity. It may be useful for a club to prepare responses to common member questions/complaints over recurring issues such as surface water, poor sward development during dry periods and surface performance. A site water management plan would be useful in this situation to detail out the problem diagnosis already performed by the greenkeeping team, and the options available for the club to solve them. Additional supporting information, such as climate change information from this portal, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) data, water company policies, water bills and pictorial evidence can be used to further educate members of likely future limitations.