There's a golf course right next to the Furnace Creek Visitor Center, where everyone is taking their Instagram photos next to the hottest temperatures ever recorded.
Best example of the "monument to man's arrogance" that I've seen yet.
I'm still of the opinion that golf courses should be allowed to exist but only if they reflect the environment where they are located and contain only native flora. A desert golf course with tons of sand traps, packed dirt fairways, and lots of cacti/desert plants and rocks would be awesome and not an affront to god.
The desert setting would be a great place to do "outlaw golf" on public land. Sort of like rock climbing - marking out routes/holes onto an existing landscape, figuring out rating/par and then people can come play on it. It would be a great low-impact way of connecting with the landscape and nature.
I'm not against Golf in principle. But they way it's done currently is the most high-impact and least inclusive way that it could be done.
Golf courses should simply not be allowed to irrigate. You want to make a golf course in the desert? Cool, don't get a molecule of water that isn't already there, so no grass binch. You want to make a water trap in a place where there isn't currently a pond? Okay, well, no pumps. Figure out how to do it sustainably and without additional water.
No permanent irrigation (since even native perennials will need additional water after transplant), no pesticides, hard limits on fertilizer use and mowing.
Golf is fascist, sorry to ruin your "fun".
(jk I don't mind this idea.)
The best way to appreciate post-apocalyptic media is to exist in the society it predicts.
Death Valley is already a fine landscape to golf on, why would you put grass on it. What.
a fine powder of dust smoothing out the ground sounds like a good surface