I was surprised to read "A Harvest of Golf Courses From Vietnam's Farmland" in the NY Times and International Herald Tribune. It didn't match what I know of the golf industry in Vietnam or the work done by my friends there. I have worked with Hanoi Golf Club and have visited other course in the Hanoi, Dalat, and Ho Chi Minh City areas -- I am familiar with golf course maintenance in Vietnam.

The NY Times piece about golf in Vietnam, written by Seth Mydans, included a number of misapprehensions about the golf industry in Vietnam, particularly in the areas of water use and land use. So I was pleased to see Mandarin Media's article "Off Course: Did the International Herald Tribune get its story straight on golf in Vietnam?", which presents another view of the golf industry in Vietnam and provides clarification on some of the issues raised by Mydans. Both articles are worth reading in their entirety for anyone interested in golf development in Vietnam specifically and golf courses and the environment generally.

Mydans' article quotes Le Anh Tuan (of the Can Tho University Environmental Technology Center) as saying that an 18-hole golf course could consume 177,000 cubic feet (about 5,000 m³) of water per day. This would be the peak water use during the hottest and driest time of year, assuming 70 hectares of irrigated turf. However, the actual amount of water used can be much less (see the photo from Hanoi Golf Club above). I have done advisory work with Hanoi Golf Club, and at that course, even at the driest times of the year, most of the course remains unirrigated, with the key playing corridors receiving just enough water to sustain the health of the plants, and no more. The effective irrigated area here is more like 25 ha, and the amount of water applied is only a fraction of what one would infer from reading the article in the NY Times. During rainy weather, of course, the use of irrigation water on turf is nil.

Other courses such as Vietnam Golf and Country Club at Ho Chi Minh City use an organic fertilizer (see the storage tank at right) that is produced as a byproduct from a large MSG factory nearby. This industrial waste is recycled and used to great effect on this course, which is also a Laureate Course of the International Golf and Life Foundation (IGOLF). The chairman of IGOLF is Paul Sochaczewski, a superb storyteller and award-winning journalist who has written a number of articles about golf and the environment, many of which can be downloaded here.

For more information about golf courses and the environment and the best management practices for golf courses to follow, I suggest looking also at the Golf Environment Organisation website and The R&A course management website. For more information about turfgrass management in Asia, see a selection of articles at the Asian Turfgrass Center's turfgrass information page.