Cleary: Golf must adapt to climate change because we can’t trust the pols

Maybe not Satan. It was water from the sky not The Exorcist II.

But it certainly did rain a lot on dear old Sydney town, a month’s worth in 24 hours, is what they said. And you wondered what it can all possibly mean.

At the Table of Knowledge at my club, where the consumption of hops-based beverages was being complemented by canny investment upon thoroughbred horses (at least until it was washed out at Randwick, again), it was mooted that it’s like there’s something up with the weather.

Golf does seem to have been cancelled rather a lot the last few years and instead of just dud weather we’re having “events”.

Fires down the coast, floods in the north, heat waves like in Riyadh. Vision of great thumping icebergs careening down glaciers, a horror movie right there on our TV, shockin’ us right outta our brains.

According to those dinkum Aussie science boffins at the CSIRO – who, one would assume, would know more than my claque of middle-aged piss-pots on the punt because golf was called off – Australia’s hottest and driest year was in 2019 with a record-breaking number of days over 39C.

“In the future, we can expect further warming and sea-level rise, with more hot days and heatwaves, less snow, more rainfall in the north, less April–October rainfall in the southwest and southeast and more extreme fire weather days in the south and east,” the weather types forecast.

According to their American counterparts, 2023 was the warmest year recorded since recording began in 1850. The 10 warmest years in the 174-year record all occurred during the last decade.

Which can’t be, you know, good.

Rory McIlroy, Tommy Fleetwod and Ryan Fox walk down the first fairway past a huge puddle left over from the heavy overnight rain during Day One of the Hero Dubai Desert Classic on the Majlis Course at The Emirates Golf Club on January 26, 2023 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. PHOTO: David Cannon/Getty Images

Yes, yes, yes – one of my posse would argue. But if it’s getting so hot, why are we then getting so much rain?

Now, I dunno why. I can barely deduce the form of Harry’s Boy in the fifth at Flemington.

But what I can figure is: pollution has poked holes in the ozone layer, the extra sun overheats the sea, the water goes upwards into the sky as condensation and forms clouds which float over the land and turn into rain which falls on the land and stuffs up golf.

And thus, before we’re forced to play indoor golf on simulators, or someone invents a synthetic version of TifEagle Bermuda and rolls it out over thousands of square hectares, golf has to adapt.

And golf knows it.

Grace Kim (left), with her father, reacts during heavy rainfall in the final round of 2022 TPS Sydney at Bonnie Doon Golf Club on March 6, 2022. PHOTO: Andy Cheung/Getty Images

The Australia Sports Turf Managers Associations – our glorious greenkeepers – have access to dozens of articles addressing extreme events – flood, drought, heat – along with how to deal with rising costs, labour shortages, and, as ever, golfers whingeing about using their cart.

They also have check all the weather apps so they can schedule some time to actually do some work given all the bloody rain.

Golf Australia (the governing body) says “the Australian golf industry has flagged its intent to address external sustainability factors in releasing the Golf Course 2030 Australia roadmap.”

Golf course architects won’t begin a project without thinking water conservation, drought-resistant grasses, efficient irrigation, and a whole long list of etcetera around sustainability.

So, there’s smart types doing their best. And the mother of invention is necessity. And all that.

Spectators shelter from the rain during the final round of the Open Championship at Royal Portrush in 2019. PHOTO: Andy Buchanan / AFP via Getty Images

And the industry may have to be inventive given politicians with the power have been loathe to do anything concrete about actually mitigating the reasons for the extreme weather – climate change – lest it affect too many people’s bottom line and self interest, and they cop too much stick from shouty media, big business and scary old Alan Jones.

And thus, all our dear leaders seem to do is score points from one another with the aim to convince us to keep voting for the bastards.

What can we do? Agitate. Lobby. Hope. Hope that the powers-that-be find that it’s actually in their interest to do something about it, and find someone who can sell it as in everyone’s interest.

To paraphrase Paul Keating, always back self-interest, at least you know it’s having a go.

Hopefully it’s a better bet than the horses.