For golf's true enthusiasts, the game is far more-and far more complex-than a simple hobby, commodity, or slice of the sports industry. It is a physical and mental place to be, a community. It has a ...history, a hierarchy, laws, a language, and a literature. And in Richard J. Moss, it has a chronicler.From its beginnings in the northeastern United States in the 1880s, golf has seen its popularity, and its fortunes, wax and wane, affected by politics and economics, reflecting tensions between aristocratic and democratic impulses. The Kingdom of Golf in America traces these ups and downs, ins and outs, in the growth of golf as a community. Moss describes the development of the private club and public course and the impact of wealth and the consumer culture on those who play golf and those who watch. He shows that factors like race, gender, technology, suburbanization, and the transformation of the South that shaped the nation also shaped golf. The result is a unique, and uniquely entertaining, work of cultural history that shows us golf as a community whose story resonates far beyond the confines of the course. Purchase the audio edition.
This groundbreaking history of African Americans and golf explores the role of race, class, and public space in golf course development, the stories of individual black golfers during the age of ...segregation, the legal battle to integrate public golf courses, and the little-known history of the United Golfers Association (UGA)--a black golf tour that operated from 1925 to 1975. Lane Demas charts how African Americans nationwide organized social campaigns, filed lawsuits, and went to jail in order to desegregate courses; he also provides dramatic stories of golfers who boldly confronted wider segregation more broadly in their local communities. As national civil rights organizations debated golf's symbolism and whether or not to pursue the game's integration, black players and caddies took matters into their own hands and helped shape its subculture, while UGA participants forged one of the most durable black sporting organizations in American history as they fought to join the white Professional Golfers' Association (PGA).From George F. Grant's invention of the golf tee in 1899 to the dominance of superstar Tiger Woods in the 1990s, this revelatory and comprehensive work challenges stereotypes and indeed the fundamental story of race and golf in American culture.
An eco-efficiency model for golf A. H. Bekken, Michael; Mitchell, Paul D.; Soldat, Douglas J.
Ecological indicators,
September 2024, Letnik:
166
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
•Eco-efficiency (EE) metrics allow for quantification of golf course sustainability.•Social EE refers to the ratio of rounds to resource use, economic EE refers to ratio of profit to resource ...use.•Golf courses in Europe had higher mean social and economic eco-efficiency indices than golf courses in the US.•Public golf courses had higher EE than private golf courses. Resort courses had the highest economic EE.•Rounds and profit did not correlate to resource use on golf courses, suggesting resource use could be reduced.
Though golf courses utilize many of the same resource inputs as agriculture, including water, fertilizer, pesticide, and energy, the outputs of production are not physical goods like in agriculture. Instead, golf courses are part of the service industry, where the output of production is an experience. Eco-efficiency studies in the service industry, specifically the tourism industry, commonly use economic impact as the output of production. We hypothesize that for golf courses, which are most commonly independent small businesses, the output of production is best defined by the number of rounds hosted by the course or as the profit made by the course. The number of rounds quantifies the recreational utility that the golf course provides, while profit quantifies the economic output of the golf course. In this study, the ratio of rounds of golf played to water, energy, fertilizer, and pesticide use is referred to as social eco-efficiency, while the ratio of profit generated to water, energy, fertilizer, and pesticide use is referred to as economic eco-efficiency. Climate normalized eco-efficiency scores were also developed so that eco-efficiency scores could be compared across golf courses in different climates. Both climate normalized and non-climate normalized social and economic eco-efficiency scores within each resource category were weighed equally to generate social and economic eco-efficiency indices for each golf course in the study. The climate normalized mean social and economic eco-efficiency indices were higher on average on golf courses in Europe than golf courses in the US. Public golf courses had higher mean social eco-efficiency indices than private golf courses, and resort courses had the highest mean economic eco-efficiency indices. The eco-efficiency framework holds promise as a tool to help golf course managers reduce inputs that do not support the social or economic benefits of golf.
