There is no mistaking the fact that everything about the game of golf has been under assault for some time. I can recite the complaints in my sleep: It caters only to rich white people, it's a waste of real estate, it uses too much water, it poisons the environment.
We've heard it all.
Just when you think you've read the dumbest thing yet to disparage the business of golf, guess what? There's more.
For the past two weeks, assistant superintendent Emily Casey's video of javelina damage at Seven Canyons in Sedona, Arizona, has attracted more than 33 million views and a lot of commentary. Some funny, some helpful, some ridiculous.
A story published on Yahoo claimed that the javelina herd making its daily trek through Seven Canyons is doing so because golf courses across Arizona threaten their natural habitat.
The story is a partisan hit job, ignorant of the facts necessary to frame an objective description of the events. Instead, it supports a pre-ordained, anti-golf agenda. It's the kind of subjective "journalism" The story further illustrates the disconnect between your business and those who do not follow the game and have no idea what you do.
To them, you rob the planet of its water resources and poison the environment.
Comprising nearly 114,000 square miles, Arizona is the country's sixth-largest state by area and is 14th in population with 7.4 million people. With about 370 golf courses across the state, it's not even in the top 10 in that category. There are a humble seven golf courses within 15 miles of Sedona, so it seems like the javelina in the country's 48th state have some room to spread out.
In light of those facts, the story's author calls golf courses "water hungry" and "a nuisance to environmentalists." Never mind Arizona's population that has exploded by 470 percent in the past 60 years, from 1.3 million in 1960 to 7.4 million today, or how housing developments, strip malls and highways encroach on javelina habitat to a much greater degree, or how much water is used by the millions of Arizonans who have chosen to live in a desert.
Talk about a strain on water resources and habitat.
But let's blame golf. After all, it's an easy target and it doesn't fight back.
The story cites a University of Arizona researcher who says in the face of shrinking habitat, the javelina have "no choice" but to raid golf courses for food - in this case lush green turf.
Two things. First, if the golf course was not there, there would be no lush green turn for the Javelina. Second, Casey is on record saying the javelina are digging for earthworms, which she notes are beneficial to the soils at Seven Canyons.
But who cares about facts?
"It's sad because we have coexisted with wildlife for our entire evolutionary history," the "researcher" said. "Up until the past 200 or 300 years, this wasn't seen as an 'us versus them.' It was just seen as living."
Three-hundred years? That's nearly a decade before the birth of George Washington.
The truth is that javelina are prolific breeders — females usually have two litters of two young per year — and are thriving so much that they have been hunted legally for more than 60 years with hunters taking as much as 10 percent of their total population each year in a season that spans parts of January and February.
But who cares about facts when you're trying to make a point?
