I would say “It is to laugh” if it weren’t so deplorable.

Years ago I started in a volunteer Master Gardener class. One woman was convinced that as long as it was green it had to be great. By the time we finished, she’d learned the difference between weeds – some of them edible but some extremely noxious – and useful flowers and vegetables. She didn’t again claim all green was good.

It’s the same with golf, which couldn’t exist absent its monoculture, the next nearest thing to nothing at all. The grass is tenderly manicured so some poor golfer’s shot won’t wobble, and the relatively few flowers – for decoration – are far from the greens. No clovers may rear their lovely heads among the lawns for bees to visit as nature intended – they might cause a sub-par shot!

Too often heavy doses of herbicides are used to maintain the great green illusion that is golf, and plant killers are about the furthest thing from nature there is.

There is a vague assurance there will be created “a new nature area north of the cultural center.” Who thinks to look at what the birds are eating and what is in the soil ecosystem which has already established itself? These relationships don’t happen overnight! Just like the recent past platitude (that the South Shore Nature Sanctuary wouldn’t be disturbed) but they now want to shove their done deal down our throats, watch – they’ll roll out sod and call it natural.

If golf is really a jobs creator, let Tiger Woods plunk a course somewhere it could truly make a difference, on some of the City’s many vacant lots and brownfields. Don’t pander to Curry and other golf-elitists who think of the nature that belongs here as expendable and who ignore the first law of the planet, which is: Nature abhors a vacuum!