I just love watching useless things being turned into something great

The golf course becomes a farm surrounded by fancy houses or a housing development in the country with nothing. The hard choice is to stand up and save the golf course by taking responsibility as a community and doing what it takes to make it pay for itself or letting it go. Farmland would be a far better choice than letting some money grubbing developer take away the land forever by turning it into houses, shopping centres or industrial parks. Jp

In a society that spends an inordinate amount of time (and money)watching behemoths beat up each other on the football field and" martial artists" beat each other senseless,it may be golf is too placid.Maybe we can start having golfers hit each other once in a while to stimulate more interest.

One of the best courses in Rochester NY has been closed.It was a popular venue for charity events, but now is just grown over. Plans were for a housing dev, but something has been amiss around that plan.

Fred- You talk of losing money in golf courses and yet bemoan the fact that not many walk. If it were not for the cart fee income there would be literally thousands of more golf courses being turned into houses and condos. Add in the f&b income from the cart golfers and it does not make sense to promote the walking aspect.

If you want to work out go to the gym.

3 9 hole courses have closed in our area (rural) and gone back to farmland recently. The courses were losing money. As golfers, we need to promote our game. How about parking the carts and walking and promoting the fitness/health aspect? I'm 78 and walk 9 4-5 times a week in under 2 hrs. per round. Love it and took off 10 lbs. in the first summer.

I was involved with a golf course/housing development a few years back. The owner of the property being developed was a farm family that lived on the site. I remember all too well that the wife and matriarch of the family was so thrilled that she no longer would have her house filled with dust and dirt twice a year from the plowing and tilling that is necessary to grow crops. Not to mention the farm noises, smells and fertilizer aromas. We will see how city dwellers cope with this reality.

Green Mountain Golf Course in the Vancouver Washington / Camas Washington area was closed to make way for a housing development. There was talk about doing that for several years and even some talk of reducing it from 18 holes to 9 holes and just building on half of the property, which all of us golfers that played there were hoping for. That fell through and it closed about a year ago now and the land still just sits there without any building activity at all as of yet. It seems such a waste for the land to just sit there.

Our course in Alex was closed 4years ago and a farmer purchased it and was not allowed to farm it by the community.

The herbicides and pesticides used on golf courses destroy the nutrients and bacteria needed to grow food. You can't call fruits and vegetables "organic," if they are grown in soil that has not been restored.