After closing, these golf courses went wild

There was rough grass in one sandbox and wooden blocks and a toy castle in the other, evidence of children playing. People were walking their dogs on the channel, which looked quite ragged and unkempt. This was only to be expected.

Nowadays these areas are only mowed twice a year, and that is no longer the case doused with pesticides or rodenticides since 2018, when this 157-acre tract of land ceased to be San Geronimo Golf Course, and began a journey to become wild again, or at least wilder.

A small number of shuttered golf courses across the country have been purchased by land trusts, municipalities and nonprofits and converted into nature reserves, parks and wetlands. Among them are locations in Detroit, PennsylvaniaColorado, the Finger Lakes in New York State and at least four in California.

“We quickly recognized the high restoration value, the conservation value and the recreational value to the public,” said Guillermo Rodriguez, California state director at the nonprofit Trust for Public Land, which in 2018 purchased the San Geronimo course in Marin County for $ 8.9 million bought. and named it San Geronimo Commons.

During a recent tour of the land, which lies low in the San Geronimo Valley less than an hour's drive north of San Francisco, Mr. Rodriguez gestured to rolling hills that serve as habitat for wildlife, including hawks soaring overhead circled around. “You have public lands on both sides,” he said. “This was the missing link.”

The recovery of San Geronimo's land is still ongoing. Floodplains will be reconnected, and a fish barrier has been removed, providing access to more robust migration and breeding areas for endangered coho salmon and endangered steel trout. Trails have been planned that bypass the sensitive habitat, turning the land into a publicly accessible ecological life raft, far different from its days as a golf course.

“It's a great place, and it's beautiful,” said Charles Esposito, 76, a retiree who recently enjoyed a walk. “I love it.”

In recent years, the golf industry has taken steps to alleviate environmental impacts in some places by utilizing golf courses less water, sowing pollinator-friendly plants and reducing the use of pesticides and fertilizers.

Yet the raw materials and chemicals required for pristine emerald grass have made the sport a bête noire for environmentalists. According to the United States Golf Association, America's approximately 16,000 golf courses use 1.5 billion gallons of water per day and are collectively treated with 100,000 tons of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium per year.

The United States has more golf courses than McDonald's locations and also more than any other country, accounting for about 42 percent of all golf courses worldwide, according to the National Golf Foundation.

That oversupply, combined with development pressure, has led to more golf courses closing than opening since 2006. A return to nature, or some version thereof, is still relatively rare for former golf courses, most of which end up in the hands of commercial or residential developers, according to the National Golf Foundation. A recent example was a former 36-hole golf facility in New Hampshire that Target purchased for nearly $122 million in 2023 to build a new distribution center.

Turning a golf course into a public green space requires an unlikely set of stars to align. There must be a willing seller and, crucially, a conservation-oriented buyer who can afford to not only buy the land, but also restore it. According to Eric Bosman, urban planner at design and planning firm Kimley-Horne, 28 former courts have been converted into public green spaces between 2010 and October 2022.

But the number seems to be growing slowly. In 2023, the former Cedar View Golf Course, on the eastern shore of Cayuga Lake in New York State, was purchased by the Finger Lakes Land Trust. Another nonprofit, the West Lake Art Conservation Center plans to convert about 230 acres of the shuttered Lakeview Golf & Country Club in Owasco into a nature preserve.

Although redesigning a golf course may disappoint players, it can have major benefits for animals, plants and people.

A few hundred miles south of San Geronimo, on land owned by the University of California, Santa Barbara, the 64-acre area that once housed the Ocean Meadows Golf Course is now an estuary surrounded by grasslands, salt marshes and islets. coastal sage thickets.

The previous owner planned to sell the course to a housing developer but was thwarted by the 2008 recession, said Lisa Stratton, director of ecosystem management at the university's Cheadle Center for Biodiversity and Ecological Restoration, which manages the land. People at the school turned to the Trust for Public Land, which bought the property for $7 million in 2013 and donated it to the university.

The extensive restoration of the Santa Barbara site took years and was funded with $16 million in local, state and federal grants. It involved moving 350,000 cubic yards of soil that golf course developers had taken from nearby mesas decades ago and pushed on top of wetlands to build the course. The restored wetlands now reduce flood risk and protect against sea level rise, said Dr. Stratton. The change also meant that nearby homes were no longer in a federal flood zone. Without golf balls whizzing overhead, the land has become a habitat for migratory birds including waders, yellowlegs and sandpipers, and has even attracted the secretive American bittern. Newly installed underground rock structures provide habitat for rabbits, ground squirrels, mice and burrowing owls.

Two federally endangered plants, the Ventura marsh vetch and the salt marsh bird's beak, have also been established at the site, as part of an effort to move some plants north as their natural habitat becomes too warm. Students from the university have been involved in the restoration work and have monitored hundreds of animal species.

The public has also embraced the building. Last October, members of the Chumash tribe performed a cultural burn on part of the grassland, and the campsite attracts birdwatchers and children on bicycles, who use the paths to go to school.

“What we have learned is how important these areas are to people; that they need them emotionally and psychologically,” said Dr. Stratton.

But the transformations are not always seamless. After the Trust for Public Land purchased the San Geronimo property, it planned to sell it to Marin County. But a group of local golf advocates successfully sued to block the county's purchase because an environmental review had not been completed. They also proposed a ballot measure to limit what the county could do with the land. It was defeated, with about 70 percent of San Geronimo voters choosing to continue with the rewilding.

Although restoration was postponed, easements were secured for most of the site, preventing future development, and a new plan was developed for Marin County to acquire the land. The county plans to pay the Trust for Public Land $4.9 million for a parcel where the clubhouse is located and build a fire station there, said Dennis Rodoni, the county supervisor. The Trust for Public Land then plans to transfer ownership of the remaining 130 open acres to the county.

In Palm Springs, some neighbors of the former Mesquite Golf & Country Club opposed plans to restore that land to a natural state, saying they prefer the look of a manicured 18-hole championship course.

“We once had a very nice view that looked out over the golf course to the mountains,” said Don Olness, who serves on the board of the homeowners association of an adjacent apartment complex. But since the Oswit Land Trust When he bought the golf course for $9 million in 2022, the area was full of weeds, dead trees and fallen branches, he said. “It's basically an unkempt area,” Mr. Olness said.

Citing a lease agreement with the golf course owners, the homeowners association has filed a lawsuit to temporarily halt all changes made by the land trust, which purchased the course with a donation from Brad Prescott, a philanthropist, and named Prescott Preserve.

Jane Garrison, the land trust's founder and executive director, said the ongoing lawsuit prevents the trust from accessing a multimillion-dollar grant needed to properly restore the land. But of the trust's five properties, the Prescott Preserve has quickly become the most popular.

The trust removed poison from the course's maintenance shed, along with poison and gopher traps around the site, Ms Garrison said. She and colleagues came across dead rabbits and owls, and a study confirmed that one ground squirrel had died after consuming rodenticide, which makes predators such as coyotes and bobcats susceptible to mange.

“If you remove all the poison and stop that cycle, you give those species a chance to recover,” Ms Garrison said.

Although the restoration has only just begun, wildflowers and plants have already reappeared, she said. About 100 native trees, including desert willows, ironwood and mesquite, were donated by a local nursery and planted. The Trust has decided to maintain ponds with recycled water on site as climate change has made it difficult for wildlife to find water.

The group hopes to acquire more golf courses in Palm Springs, which, despite being in a desert, is home to many golf courses. “Once the land is gone, once they build apartments, it's gone forever,” Ms. Garrison. “But if you save it, it's saved forever. You can't put a price tag on that.”