Golf Digest: There are more than a thousand golf courses in the United States that can be considered "coastal." More than half of them could be gone by the end of this century because of global warming. Research that Golf Digest commissioned from the Longitudes Group, which provides geographical research focused on recreational activities, suggests that of the 1,168 coastal courses less than two meters above sea level, 645 would in part or in total be submerged if sea levels were to rise in the next century. Courses like those at Kiawah Island Golf Resort in South Carolina, the TPC Sawgrass Stadium Course in Florida and Newport Country Club in Rhode Island all could be severely affected by a sea-level rise of two meters.
Though the conservative projection from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicts about a half-meter rise in sea level before the turn of the century, this is a generalization. Others have suggested more alarming projections. A National Science Foundation-funded study two years ago predicted that if warming continues at its current pace, a six-meter rise in sea level by 2100 is possible. That kind of impact would eliminate the bottom third of Florida, and very likely would submerge much of the golf course property in coastal New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia and the Carolinas. (Of course, if that happens, there'll be much bigger issues than golf.)...
Photo by "Tewy" of the view from the back of the Lodge at Pebble Beach, showing the mean old ocean about to swallow up that poor defenseless green. From Wikimedia Commons
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