Blue Lakes CC - Holes 13 & 14, Par 4s, Twin Falls, Idaho (Courtesy of Rob Perry)
This column features recollections of the author’s 38 years as a golf writer. These installments stem from his many travels and experiences, which led to a gradual understanding that the game has many intriguing components, especially its people.
There’s been a lot of news lately – good, bad and startling – which, one way or another, involve golf.
We’re all aware of the insidious growth of AI and its resource-sucking data centers. The monolithic structures now have a golf twist at a community course in Michigan. It was recently purchased by a New York firm that plans to build a $16 billion server farm right on property next door to the fairways and greens.
According to Golf.com writer, Josh Sens, developer Related Digital promised the team at Rustic Glen Golf Club in Saline that its ambition is “Quite simple: to keep it as a great golf course and community amenity for members and the public to enjoy for years to come,” while it moves ahead installing the cavernous machine rooms.
The project was initially denied a building permit. But Bridgewater Township officials later reversed their ruling after receiving incentives from the facility’s ultimate end-user, Oracle, which likely did even better in the deal. The mega-corporation led by one of the world’s richest men, Larry Ellison, will get a large tax break in exchange for Related Digital promising a one-time $14 million donation to the township and local fire departments.
For the full story, visit https://golf.com/news/data-center-rustic-glen-golf-club-michigan/?utm_campaign=forecast&utm_source=golfcom&utm_medium=email&utm_content={date.
Data centers are a major suck on electricity and water sources. These massive boxes that house a jumbled array of networked computer systems, servers, and supporting infrastructure now use 4.4% of nation’s total demand. By 2028, that number will rise to about 12% of American electricity, straining already overtaxed local power grids.
Water is another precious commodity needed by the quaintly named “server farms.” A study by the Florida Water & Pollution Control Operators Association (https://www.fwpcoa.org/content.aspx?page_id=5&club_id=859275&item_id=130961) determined a medium-sized data center uses 100 million gallons of water annually to cool servers via their evaporative cooling systems. Larger “hyper scale” facilities consume between 1 million and 5 million gallons a day during peak conditions, or 0.4% of daily national water withdrawals and public water supply use.
A recent story written by Jennifer Lindahl of the Montgomery Advertiser appeared in Golfweek compared these numbers with golf’s water usage. (https://golfweek.usatoday.com/story/sports/golf/courses/2026/07/09/what-uses-more-water-golf-courses-or-data-centers/90855401007/?a=a&utm_source=golfweek-getsocial-strada&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=golfweek_baseline_greeting&utm_term=Untitled&utm_content=golfweek-8872SM-E-NLETTER37)
The Golf Course Superintendent Association of America (https://www.usga.org/content/dam/usga/pdf/Water%20Resource%20Center/how-much-water-does-golf-use.pdf) estimates golf turf uses 2.08 billion gallons of water per day for irrigation, or 0.5 percent of the nation’s daily total water withdrawals.
Data-center technology is readily available for implementing closed-loop systems which, after installing new piping and relatively inexpensive infrastructure, re-purposes the water for heating homes and buildings. Certain water-recycling designs also utilize recycled municipal wastewater rather than pristine drinking water.
Both options add slightly to tech’s upfront investment. Large corporations often bypass these unregulated options unless stipulated by local agencies when permits are issued. Many rural areas – where real farming has traditionally taken place – are starving for capital and ignore the closed-loop add-ons. Indeed, many desperate jurisdictions offer excessive tax incentives which financially and physically blight the area for decades to come.
Water sources for the estimated 16,000 golf courses in the U.S. vary widely. Options include a mix of surface water, groundwater, recycled wastewater, and municipal potable water supplies, with some combining multiple sources depending on local availability, climate, and regional regulations. Twelve percent of U.S. golf courses use recycled or reclaimed water for irrigation.
Construction momentum for cloud computing and massive “hyper scale” facilities began with the dot.com boom in the mid-2000s. But the increased emphasis on AI and overwhelming investments by tech giants like Google, Oracle, Microsoft and Amazon has ramped up construction exponentially.
There are currently 6,000 data centers and 12,000 worldwide.
The expected build-out of the centers through 2030 is projected to triple global capacity. Cumulative global investments are forecast to approach $7 trillion, with U.S. power demand expected to more than double as more gigawatt-scale campuses emerge. (For comparison, the 2026 total world economy is $126 trillion.)
A typical data center has a staff ranging from 10-200 full-time employees, depending on physical size, megawatts of power capacity, level of automation, and whether it’s a smaller “enterprise” facility or hyper scale campus.
An average golf facility employs roughly 35 to 50 workers, with top-end golf resorts pushing that number to 200 and 500 full-time staff.
Beyond their large environmental footprint and ravenous consumption of electricity, water and land, data centers generate electronic waste and local air pollution. They generate no other beneficial product (according to an AI search). They’re also altering the tech job market by eliminating well-paying jobs. Studies estimate up to 25% of the U.S. work force could be replaced by automation.
An August 24, 2026, article in “The Atlantic” by David A. Graham detailed the growing mistrust – and disgust – of this tech invasion. “Three-quarters of Americans would oppose a data center being built near where they live, according to a by Heat-map Pro and Embold Research (https://heatmap.news/daily/data-center-opposition-poll-collapse),” Graham wrote.
Politicians from both sides of the aisle agree. “The two leading lights of the left, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Bernie Sanders, have sponsored a bill in Congress to create a temporary moratorium on new centers,” wrote Graham. “They have an unlikely ally in archconservative Governor Greg Abbott of Texas, who said yesterday on ABC’s “This Week” that data-center companies ‘basically dug their own grave’ and ‘got the backlash they deserve.’
“Standing against this consensus is Donald Trump. The president remains a big booster of data centers. ‘Communities that don’t take a data center – they’re making a mistake,’ he said [August 20, 2026] during an interview with his on-again, off-again lackey Michael Cohen. ‘Data centers throw off tremendous amounts of jobs and money.’
“This was no one-off. Trump had made several similar comments recently. ‘If I were the mayor of a town or the governor of a state and I had a chance to get a big plant in, an AI plant or a data center, I would absolutely want it, because the jobs are enormous and the money paid, the taxes paid, are just enormous.’
“Data centers’ political arc has been different. Initially, many officials seemed to back the centers, following exactly Trump’s logic: They offered jobs and tax benefits. But as public opinion turned – driven by a mix of backlash to AI in general, environmental concerns, worries about energy prices, and old-fashioned NIMBYism – politicians changed their view as well.”
Related – Harshada Abhyankar’s 22 Years in Golf Course Management
A March 13, 2025, story on the International Association of Fire Fighters website (https://www.iaff.org/news/data-centers-are-booming-and-fire-fighters-must-adapt-to-new-challenges/) warned of another not so existential threat:
“For fire fighters in North America, the growing presence of data centers requires specialized training, lots of planning and close cooperation with on-site security and engineering teams at these new sites.
“And the first thing to know, according to IAFF experts who were interviewed for this story? You can’t respond to a datacenter fire like a typical structure fire as massive buildings have complex floor plans, ultra-secure perimeters, and high-value equipment that reacts poorly to water while housing backup power systems with dangerous lithium-ion batteries.”
Golf and the many places it’s played have been proven commodities for over a century. Science shows these sustainable green spaces provide urban cooling effects, stormwater filtration, carbon sequestration, local ecosystems and blissful silence.
Moreover, this game deeply engrained in our culture provides exercise, camaraderie, inner discipline and lifetimes of memories. It’s clear, in this case, analog is better than digital.
Below is a link to a well-written article in GCM (https://gcmonline.com/) by Jeremy Boone, a golf course superintendent at Springdale Resort in Canton, N.C., who began hosting educational First Green field trips in April 2022. Boone is one of many who’ve happily discovered how the program grows golf through hands-on STEM learning, and some kids may have an “aha” moment that compels them to dig deeper.
The topic of high-tech drivers and multi-layer distance balls changing the game has been mulled over for a couple of generations. We know the drill: Big-bucks touring pro Johnny Whippetgood rockets drives 350 yards, safely lands 150 yards from the green on a par 5 and knocks it close for an eagle or ho-hum birdie. Joe Boobtube watches and feels he can do that too by shelling out $300-400 for a driver and a $40 box of balls.
I attended a Q&A symposium at the PGA Merchandise Show in Orlando in the early 2000s headlined by the then leaders of the PGA Tour, USGA, GCSAA, PGA of America, and National Golf Course Owners Association. The topic was a game rapidly changing.
Among the club pros and exhibitors in attendance were several operators of mom-and-pop courses.
After the panel expressed their giddy delight with golf, the moderator wanted more specifics. He asked them over Orange County Convention Center’s PA system: “On a scale of 1 to 10 – with 10 the highest rating – is the added distance by high-tech equipment good or bad for the game?”
The first four mucky mucks beamed and gave glowing plus-9 ratings. The USGA head (who shall go nameless) had golf at a superb 9.6. The NGCOA boss lowered the bliss bar a bit with his 7.5.
This positivity got the crowd buzzing as a wave of booing and shouts startled those on the stage. A man and a woman immediately stood up and yelled, “Do any of you know what’s going on?”
They then rattled off their reality from the front lines:
Their 18-hole, 6,000-yard golf course was becoming obsolete. Liability insurance rates were soaring from damage to nearby homes, golfers and passing cars. It was impossible to move tees farther back with the course’s long-established footprint. Loss of business to newer and longer courses that took their golfers. Diminishing rounds in an already thin-margined, six-month-a-year daily-fee operation were forcing them to seriously consider closing after years of hard work.
Many of these family-owned businesses did close and will never return. It’s unknown whether high-tech pushed them over the edge, but it certainly didn’t help.
This distance thing is still a concern, as evidenced by this analysis of Forrest Richardson, the 2020-21 president of the American Society of Golf Course Architects: https://www.forrestrichardsongolf.com/too-far/.
“The Biker’s Balancing Act”
A buff biker leaves the repair shop on foot and, while walking home, stops at the general store to buy a bucket, an anvil, two chickens, and a goose.
He couldn’t figure out how to carry it all before a little old lady comes by and suggests: “Put the anvil in the bucket, carry the bucket in one hand, put a chicken under each arm, and hold the goose in the other hand.”
Grateful for the tip, the biker offers to walk her home through an alley shortcut.
She pauses, looks him over, and says, “I am a lonely widow. How do I know you won’t force me against the wall and have your way with me?”
The astounded biker blurts, “Holy smokes lady! I’m carrying a bucket, an anvil, two chickens, and a goose. How can I hold you up too!?”
Jeff Shelley has written and published 12 books as well as numerous articles for print and online media since 1987. Among his titles are three editions of the book, “Golf Courses of the Pacific Northwest.” The Whidbey Island resident was editorial director of Cybergolf.com from 2000-15, co-founder of the Northwest Golf Media Association and president of the nonprofit First Green (https://www.thefirstgreen.org/). To contact Jeff: fairgreens@seanet.com.
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