Prolonged Drought Forcing SoCal Clubs to Further Restrict Watering

The strictest water-saving rules apply to dozens of courses in cities from Simi Valley to Los Angeles. El Caballero Country Club in Tarzana, Calif. has already taken steps to reduce water usage, such as shutting down for nine months in 2021 to replace decades-old grass with drought-tolerant hybrid Bermuda grass. Along with the conversion of some grass to areas landscaped with native plants, this helped the course reduce water usage by between 20% and 25%.

Owners and managers of golf courses in Southern California are finding themselves targeted by state water officials who say the state is not doing enough to conserve water in a time of severe drought, the Los Angeles Times reported. Now, courses are being told to reduce water use under new drought restrictions in parts of Southern California, and managers of courses say they’re preparing to dial back their sprinklers and let some green grassy areas turn brown.

The water restrictions include a range of different requirements across Southern California, and the rules for courses vary depending on the city or district that delivers water, the Times reported. In some cities, those who run golf courses say they’re waiting for additional details from local agencies to determine exactly how much they will need to cut back.

The strictest water-saving rules apply to dozens of courses in cities from Simi Valley to Los Angeles, where the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California has ordered restrictions on outdoor watering to conserve scarce supplies from the State Water Project, the Times reported.

“We’ll make the necessary adjustments,” said Phil Lopez, General Manager of El Caballero Country Club in Tarzana. “It’ll look a little different in some spots. But that’s the world we live in here. And we’re all willing to do our part.”

The 600-member country club, which gets water from the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, has already found ways to conserve water, Lopez told the Times.

Last year, the 18-hole course shut down for nine months to undergo a major refurbishing, the Times reported. Workers replaced decades-old grass with drought-tolerant hybrid Bermuda grass.

Those 92 acres of low-water-use grass, along with the conversion of some grass to areas landscaped with native plants, have helped the course reduce water usage by between 20% and 25%, Lopez told the Times.

“We can’t just rely on the same amount of water we’ve always had because that’s not going to be plausible in the future,” Lopez said.

Lopez said that given the current shortage, the course is prepared to further reduce its water use, the Times reported.

But as residents cope with their own restrictions, some say the water that is dedicated to golf should be scaled back much more, the Times reported.

“They ask the public to reduce watering our lawns, when if you look at the numbers of all the lawns in California, the water usage is a blip in comparison to golf courses, other recreational venues for the affluent and corporate properties,” resident Spence Nicholson said.

Although some nongolfers view the area’s courses as exclusive enclaves, not all are private country clubs with wealthy members, the Times reported. Some of Southern California’s heavily used courses are public facilities frequented by people of various income levels, where the green fees for playing 18 holes can range from about $30 on weekdays to about $50 on weekends.

The new restrictions in L.A. limit customers to watering two days a week—odd-numbered address on Monday and Friday, and even addresses on Thursday and Sunday, the Times reported.

The city’s emergency conservation ordinance allows for large landscape areas, including golf courses, parks and sports fields, to deviate from the two-day-a-week rule by requesting an “alternative means of compliance,” which requires reducing monthly water usage by the amount called for under the shortage, plus an additional 5% reduction below a base line of historical water usage, the Times reported. For golf courses, that means the requirements will vary.

“We have to look on a case-by-case basis,” said Delon Kwan, the DWP’s Assistant Director of Water Resources. “Some of them have reduced water usage over the last several years. So it’s not an across-the-board target that they have to achieve.”

Kwan said the department’s staff will consider historical water usage, including in the base-line year of 2009, as well as how much a course has reduced water use in recent years, the Times reported.

“We have to look at it to see where they’re at and how much they’ve reduced,” Kwan said.

The restrictions apply to golf courses that use potable water but not golf courses that rely on recycled wastewater, the Times reported.

There are 37 golf courses in the DWP’s territory, according to the department, including full-size courses as well as some smaller courses with just three or four holes, the Times reported. Twenty golf courses are private, and 17 are public municipal courses.

Recycled water is used to irrigate 11 of these golf courses, eight of them municipal courses, the Times reported.

In all, the L.A.-area golf courses annually use about 3,000 acre-feet (977 million gallons) of recycled water and about 5,000 acre-feet (1.6 billion gallons) of drinking water, according to the DWP, the Times reported. The golf courses on average account for about 1% of the city’s total use of potable water.

Anne Huston, who lives in L.A., said she thinks it’s time to get rid of golf courses because “they waste space and water,” the Times reported.

“There’s all these incentives to replace your lawn with drought-tolerant alternatives … but my entire neighborhood of teeny, tiny lawns doesn’t even come close to a small fraction of, say, the golf course at Wilshire Country Club not far from me,” said Huston. “Literally 100 acres of land. What are they doing to replace their lawn for drought tolerance?”

Huston said she feels so strongly about the issue that she recently signed a petition calling for the elimination of golf courses in California, the Times reported.

“It feels obvious to me that in this climate crisis we don’t have the luxury of wasted space and heavy water consuming green grass for only the rich to walk on,” she said.

The last three years have been some of the driest on record in California, and scientific research shows global warming has been intensifying the extreme aridity throughout the West over the last 22 years, the Times reported.

The MWD ordered water restrictions starting June 1 across a large portion of its territory, including parts of Los Angeles, Ventura and San Bernardino counties that are dependent on the drought-ravaged State Water Project, the Times reported. The district’s managers have said they could shift to a total ban on outdoor watering as soon as September if conservation efforts don’t achieve needed targets.

Other water agencies that fall under the new restrictions include the Inland Empire Utilities Agency, Las Virgenes Municipal Water District, Calleguas Municipal Water District, Three Valleys Municipal Water District and Upper San Gabriel Valley Municipal Water District, the Times reported. These districts in turn provide water to cities and smaller suppliers.

How different cities and water suppliers treat golf courses depends on the local rules, the Times reported. In Chino Hills, for example, there are two golf courses. One course, Los Serranos Golf Club, relies entirely on recycled water and isn’t subject to the restrictions. The other, Western Hills Golf & Country Club, uses a mix of imported water and other supplies and falls under the restrictions, said Nicole Freeman, a spokesperson for the city.

The “Stage 3” restrictions in Chino Hills limit residents and businesses to watering two days per week, the Times reported. Alternatively, businesses may be exempt from the twice-a-week watering rule if they reduce their potable water usage by 28% compared with 2013, Freeman said.

The rules are different in the area served by Las Virgenes Municipal Water District, which supplies Agoura Hills, Calabasas, Hidden Hills, Westlake Village and unincorporated areas of western L.A. County, the Times reported. The two golf courses in the area use recycled water and some groundwater, and since December they’ve been required to reduce water use 25% below their individualized water budgets, said Michael McNutt, a spokesperson for the district.

In Simi Valley, water is delivered by Calleguas Municipal Water District, which is requiring one-day-a-week watering restrictions, the Times reported. Exactly how much the public Simi Hills Golf Course will need to reduce watering will be determined as managers of the Rancho Simi Recreation and Park District decide how to allocate the cuts among the local parks, said Brian Reed, the Golf Course Manager.

Reed told the Times he expects to need to reduce watering around the edges of the course, “heavier cuts to the out-of-play areas,” while keeping up watering for the most important playing areas: the greens, tees and fairways.

Simi Hills has about 100 acres of grass and five ponds. Reed told the Times the course’s current water use is about 110 million gallons a year, an amount that has already come down with conservation improvements over the years.

“It’s a very big expense for us every year. So we actively manage our water use,” Reed said. That includes using an irrigation system that enables the staff to closely monitor and adjust watering.

He said he may instruct his staff to reduce the run time on parts of the irrigation system, while shutting off some sprinklers, the Times reported. If the course has to reduce watering in the rough, Reed said, the grass in those areas will lose its green.

“It’ll go a little brown,” Reed said. “It just is what it is. I mean, there just won’t be as much green lush grass in the areas around the edges of the golf course.”

While managers of courses adjust to the new local rules, they may also be asked to start differentiating between playable areas and other surrounding non-playable areas, the Times reported. The State Water Resources Control Board last month adopted regulations that outlaw the use of drinking water for irrigating “nonfunctional” grass at commercial, industrial and institutional properties.

Sports fields are exempt, as are parts of golf courses that are used for the game, such as the greens and fairways, the Times reported. But the state board’s staff has said water agencies and golf courses should evaluate whether other turf on a golf course property is “functional” or not.

The rules should apply to golf courses in the same way that restrictions apply to everyone else, said Charming Evelyn, chair of the water committee for the Sierra Club’s Angeles Chapter, the Times reported. Evelyn, who has advocated for more use of recycled water for golf courses, said she hopes to see golf courses make more progress reducing water use, including by switching to more drought-tolerant grasses.

“Residents can reduce water use outdoors. And a lot of them have done so. But we also have to be looking at businesses, and golf courses,” Evelyn said. “They really need to have businesses reduce quite a bit.”

Craig Kessler, Director of Public Affairs for the Southern California Golf Association, told the Times that golf courses have made major strides in using less water over the last two decades by investing in efficient irrigation systems, switching to other types of grasses, and replacing some turf with low-water-use landscaping.

He told the Times managers of golf courses recognize that they will need to “go further and even faster” to adapt to these drier times.