Golf (dis)courses: A political ecology analysis of water usage in an arid area

Study area

Golf courses are a prominent feature of the U.S. recreational landscape, covering approximately 2.3 million acres across an estimated 15,000 courses nationwide (Gelernter et al., 2015). Among the cities shaped by golf tourism is St George, Utah, a rapidly growing community in the state's hottest and driest region. Spanning 78.47 square miles (126 km²), St George is home to 14 golf courses. Located upstream of Lake Mead on the Virgin River, St George plays a critical role in regional water dynamics (Figure 1). Its water consumption directly affects inflows to Lake Mead, a vital reservoir for the lower Colorado River Basin (CRB).

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Figure 1.

Study area of St. George, Utah and 14 golf courses identified in St. George.

St George's climate is characterized by hot, dry summers, cold winters, and minimal precipitation. Its Köppen classification is BW cold desert climate, and is considered a steppe or semi-arid area (Gillies and Ramsey, 2009). The normal maximum temperature is highest in July at 102°F, based on data from 1991 to 2020. St George receives an average of 9.3 inches of precipitation annually, most of which comes from snowmelt in January to March. During the summer, monthly precipitation is normally less than 0.5 inches (NOAA, 2024). Temperatures have steadily increased in St George at an average of 0.5°F per decade, and are expected to increase 3°F between 2018 and 2050 in a high emissions scenario (RCP 8.5) as precipitation continues to decline (Crimmins et al., 2023; Wuebbles et al., 2017). The city does not have a climate action plan, however, the City Council has “adopted landscape standards” limiting outdoor irrigation of potable water during summer months (City of St George, 2025). It is unclear how these standards are enforced and whether they include private golf courses.

Context

St George has a complex history entangled with settler colonialism and economic development. For over a millennium, Southern Paiute bands lived and worked along the Virgin River before Mormon settlers arrived in the late 1850s, drawn by the potential for cotton farming. In the twentieth century, the city's growth was constrained by the downwind impacts of nuclear testing, limiting economic and residential development. However, the construction of the Dixie Red Hills public golf course in 1965 marked a turning point, positioning St George as an emergent player in the golf tourism industry.

Today, St George is a rapidly growing retirement and second home community, with golf serving as a popular attraction. The City of St George has a population of 105,000 as of 2023, with one quarter of the city's population over 65 years – a 22 percent rise since 2010. The St George metropolitan statistical area (MSA) includes 208,000 people and increased 50 percent between 2010 and 2024 (U.S. Census Bureau, 2025). In 2021, the Census Bureau recognized St George as the fastest-growing MSA in the United States. This rapid population growth not only places higher demand on water resources, but comes alongside fast-paced suburban development.

Housing development in greater St George is quickly expanding. The metropolitan area is rapidly building residential units, issuing 3000 new residential building permits in 2024 alone (Wood, 2025). These units are often luxury second-homes for wealthy seasonal visitors, enticed by the abundance of golf and outdoor recreation in the area. In 2022, nearly one third of the county's real estate transactions were for luxury second-home mortgages, the largest growth in the United States (Pacaso, 2022). Luxury rental properties continue to meet the demand of tourists and seasonal residents. Over 64,000 seasonal residents and overnight visitors stayed in St George in 2023 (Harris, Leaver and Albers, 2024). As the population and residential units continue to grow, this small city faces uncertainty in water quantity and availability.

St George exemplifies the challenges of balancing rapid suburban expansion with water sustainability. The city's residents consume an average of 300 gallons of water per person per day (Utah DNR, 2024), with over half of this usage allocated to ornamental grass, lawns, and golf courses. This heavy water demand underscores the broader tension between urban development and resource conservation in arid environments. Given its location and growing reliance on water-intensive course maintenance, St George serves as a significant case study of how cities in water-scarce regions navigate the intersecting pressures of climate-induced drought, urbanization, and competing water demands.

Study design

In this study, we sought to understand the context of water use by golf courses in St George, Utah in order to clarify the latent political-economic arrangements contributing to water crisis. This involved a combination of quantitative and textual analysis. The quantitative data was compiled from several secondary sources and combined using geospatial software. Quantitative results were then interpreted by comparing them to state, regional, and national averages for golf courses, and informed by existing literature on the factors which influence water use on golf courses, such as their climate and size. To support understanding of golf course development from a political ecology perspective, we conducted textual analysis of environmental and economic policy, as well as local news coverage. We then interpreted results by employing a political ecology analysis of water use on golf courses (Figure 2).

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Figure 2.

Theoretical framework of methodology.

For our quantitative methods, we utilized secondary data, which was combined to create a GIS dataset detailing information about water consumption on golf courses in St George. First, we employed a methodical approach to visualize the water usage data of golf courses in Utah and St George. We began by acquiring a polygon shapefile of Utah golf courses from the Utah Geospatial Resource Center, last updated in October 2016. We edited this dataset and converted it into point data using ArcGIS Pro, resulting in the identification of 117 golf course locations. The dataset includes critical information such as the name, city, number of holes, par, and type of golf course.

To analyze the water usage at these courses, we utilized a dataset titled, “Utah golf courses water use (in acre-feet)” from the Salt Lake Tribune newspaper detailing water consumption in acre-feet. This dataset, accessed in October 2023 and last updated in April 2023, was obtained through public records requests to both public and private golf courses, as well as from the Utah Division of Water Rights. After preparing the water usage data for integration, we matched it with the spatial data of golf courses using the ArcGIS Online Geocoding Service, correcting six entries for accuracy. Following this, we manually renamed the water usage records to facilitate a successful join with the golf course data. Ultimately, we matched 98 records between the two datasets, allowing us to visualize the relationship between golf course locations and their respective water usage. In St George, 12 of the 14 existing golf courses had data.

We supplemented the Salt Lake Tribune dataset with data from the United States Geological Survey (USGS) Water Use Data and the Utah Division of Water Resources online mapping service. In reanalysis data from 2015, the USGS estimates water consumption at the county level, breaking down water use by industry (Martin et al., 2024). We were then able to estimate the amount of water used from groundwater and surface water, and confirmed data from the Salt Lake Tribune. This data is in units of million gallons per day (abbreviated as Mgal/d) and thousand acre-feet per year. The Utah Division of Water Resources also publishes annual data about municipal and industrial water use at the county level, in acre-feet per year. We used 2022 data regarding residential water use in Washington County (Utah DNR, 2024). These datasets allowed us to compare the results of the Salt Lake Tribune data with estimated industrial water use, residential water use, as well as estimate sources of water and quantify irrigated land for golf courses.

To enhance the accessibility and clarity of water usage data, we report water volumes in both gallons and acre-feet. While the acre-foot is a commonly used unit in water resource management—particularly in the southwestern United States—it may be less familiar to broader audiences. For additional clarity, for example, 1 acre-foot equals approximately 325,851 gallons, or about half the volume of an Olympic-sized swimming pool. By including both units, we aim to ensure that our findings are understandable to a wider range of readers, including policymakers, researchers, and the general public.

In addition to our quantitative analysis, we conducted textual analysis which involved identifying common discourses surrounding water use by golf courses in a region famous for water crisis, informed by political ecology literature. Typically, discourse analysis in social science is the practice of tracing socially-constructed concepts throughout historical sources and deconstructing language to “denaturalize” the concept (Derrida, 1974; Foucault, 1976). Discourse in this context is a concept made to appear “natural,” concealing political, economic, or social agendas and histories. For the purpose of this work, we did not seek to conduct a full discursive analysis of water crisis. Rather, we sought to denaturalize water crisis by examining the economic, political, and social landscape which situates continued development of golf courses in a water-stressed region. This political ecology analysis, composed of environmental, economic, political, and social elements, brings forth a question of how water is used to a conversation usually focused on how much.

We began by collecting policy information from local water plans, including both the 2019 St George Irrigation Master Plan and the 2023 Washington County Water Efficiency Standards. These plans detailed existing water regulation at the county and local levels, and current water use by residents and largest industries. Local water plans informed the interpretation of our quantitative results, but also provided insight into the allocation of public water into private industries such as golf tourism and agriculture, in contrast with public residential demand. In addition to water allocation, St George's Irrigation Master Plan included information on the use of public tax revenue to fund capital improvements for several private golf courses. This allowed us to make connections to existing political ecology literature and understand how golf tourism is publicly subsidized.

By compiling local news coverage of the CRB water crisis and golf courses in Utah, we connected environmental and economic policies to their social contexts. Although lack of funding limited our ability to conduct in-person interviews, detailed reporting from local newspapers gave us data to identify discourses surrounding golf's water use, as well as many of the key players responsible for development in St George and golf-friendly economic policy at the state level, such as the Utah Golf Association. The Utah Golf Association's 2020 Environmental and Economic Impact Report greatly informed our discussion on the economic justifications for golf tourism, including the strategies employed to promote discourse which elevates economic contribution and downplays environmental impact. These strategies are further explained in Section 3.3. Some news features detailed efforts in the state legislature to deregulate the golf industry as recently as 2024, and in interpreting the bill ourselves, allowed us to draw important conclusions regarding the political influence of the golf industry on economic and environmental policy.

This method design integrates geospatial analysis of golf course water use with textual analysis of policies and media discourses to situate St George's development within the broader political ecology of the Colorado River Basin. By combining quantitative datasets with interpretive approaches, we highlight not only the scale of water consumption but also the socio-political conditions that enable and normalize it. This methodological framework provides a foundation for examining how urban growth, tourism, and water governance intersect in an arid region.

Environmental

Despite ongoing drought conditions, golf courses continue to operate business-as-usual, adding pressure to local and regional water resources. Across 12 golf courses with water use data in St George, we found the average annual use to be 557 acre-feet (182 million gallons). Privately-owned Sand Hollow Resort used the most water per year at an average of 1045 acre-feet (341 million gallons). It is unclear exactly why Sand Hollow consistently uses twice the local golf courses’ average, and variations between courses should be a point of future research. In total, the 12 courses used an average of 6111 acre-feet (1.99 billion gallons) of water per year. From 2018 to 2022, golf courses in St George withdrew a total of 30,490 acre-feet (9.96 billion gallons) of water (Figure 3). Our results indicate that a substantial amount of water in St George is directed toward the maintenance of golf tourism, reshaping local power dynamics and contributing to a regional strain on water resources in the Colorado River Basin.

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Figure 3.

Water consumption of Golf courses in St. George per year and long-term averages of southwest and St. George.

Because St George is located in an arid region with high temperatures and limited rainfall, water demand for maintaining golf courses is generally greater than in other parts of the United States and Utah. Climate drivers therefore play a role in our results which indicate that golf courses in St George consume significantly more water than state, regional, and national averages. However, previous studies on golf courses in the Southwest US found an average annual water use of 450 acre-feet, or 150 million gallons (Throssell et al., 2009). St George's average annual water use is 24 percent greater than this regional average, which can be attributed to a combination of environmental and social factors.

From 2018 to 2022, total annual water consumption decreased by an average of 3.9 percent. Excluding one outlier with two years of unknown data, we analyzed 11 golf courses for change over time. Four increased, five decreased, and two remained stable (less than 1 percent change over time). Three of the five golf courses which decreased water consumption are publicly owned by the City of St George. All of the four which increased their water use are private (Figure 4). Ownership appears to influence water consumption patterns, reinforcing evidence that commodifying water prioritizes profit over sustainability (e.g., Swyngedouw and Heynen, 2003). The dynamics of ownership for golf courses are complex and will be explored further in the Economic section.

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Figure 4.

Water use vs. Golf Course Size in St George.

Although only four of the 12 golf courses are publicly owned and operated, all source their water from the city, the county, or nearby cities. Based on USGS reanalysis data, we estimate that St George golf courses source 39 percent of their water from groundwater, 51 percent from surface freshwater, and 10 percent from reclaimed wastewater (Martin et al., 2024). These results indicate a rate of water consumption at 90 percent entirely from pumped public water, revealing not only a diversion of public water resources into private recreation but a cost burden on the public for treatment. Increasing the use of reclaimed wastewater on golf courses would reduce overall consumption, and in turn sustain tourism temporarily, but may increase costs for residential water users if system upgrades are required to expand water recycling.

Tensions between public and private water demand become clearer when comparing the water use by golf courses to residential use. In 2022, residential water use at the county level totaled 36,291 acre-feet, for an average of 0.18 acre-feet (60,000 gallons) per person (Utah DNR, 2024). That same year, golf courses in St George used a total of 5922 acre-feet (1.93 billion gallons) of water. This means that the amount of water used by golf courses could have supplied water for 32,900 residents. Local water resources are often directed to support golf tourism, contributing to local tensions between residents and private development amidst continued regional water stress. Similar local conflicts over water are emerging in a variety of different contexts, influenced by power, knowledge, and access (LaVanchy, 2017). Dynamics of global tourism development, and power relations between residents and non-local developers, have considerable environmental impacts in the context of global climate change.

Climate change is intensifying existing water challenges in the Colorado River Basin, with upstream areas such as St George directly impacting flow into Lake Mead. Researchers estimate that since the 1970s, average local temperatures in the CRB have increased by about 2°F and are projected to rise an additional 2.5°F by 2025 (Scarr, 2015). These warming trends contribute to shifts in snowmelt timing, reduced snowpack volumes, altered precipitation patterns, and higher evaporation rates. For example, between 1978 and 2010 snowmelt at observed sites occurred an average of 14.4 days earlier (Clow, 2010). Such changes increase the unpredictability of water availability and demonstrate the unsustainable nature of developments like golf courses in arid regions, which heavily rely on consistent supply.

It is indeed through climate change that economic and environmental vulnerabilities become exposed. However, climate change does not create social issues of distribution and unsustainable management, but rather exacerbates inequalities. The construction of water crisis in the CRB as a “climate problem” works to naturalize the uneven distribution of water, paying little attention to how water is used and by whom (O'Lear, 2018). The environmental impacts of golf tourism are neither natural nor inevitable – they are the result of structural systems which justify environmental degradation as an inevitable casualty of development and modernity. In fact, the CRB water crisis reflects a dynamic power relationship between social classes, industries, and non-human actors (Swyngedouw, 1999). The modern ideal of society's dominance over nature is challenged by an increasingly limited supply of water, and while socially constructed, the impacts of water crisis continue to be realized in various material forms. This dual tension highlights the need to denaturalize scarcity narratives, recognizing both climate pressures and governance failures, while pushing for adaptive, sustainable practices that can respond to global and regional water challenges.

Political

Water rights differ across states, and in many western states they follow the principle of prior appropriation, where earlier claims hold priority. This doctrine, one of the earliest legal frameworks governing water use in the Colorado River Basin, originated in the gold mining camps of California in the late 1840s (Maliva and Missimer, 2012). The system often incentivizes users to consume their full allocation, regardless of actual need, out of fear that unused water rights will be lost. From a political ecology perspective, this doctrine reinforces unequal access by favoring those with the financial means to secure and maintain rights, such as private golf course owners. In Utah, golf course water rights are treated as real property governed by state law and must be acquired through a formal application and permit process with the Utah Division of Water Rights, rather than being automatically included with land purchases. Together, these legal structures sustain high water consumption by golf courses, where the “use it or lose it” logic of prior appropriation combines with property-based water rights to legitimize the diversion of scarce water for recreational landscapes despite mounting scarcity and broader community needs.

Water policy at the local level remains lenient and largely unenforced. The golf industry holds significant political influence in Utah, successfully lobbying to block legislation requiring golf courses to report water use. A bill introduced in 2024 sought to further shield this data from public access (Golf Course Amendments, 2024). In 2023, St George's water district released new Water Efficiency Standards aimed to reduce local water consumption and conserve water resources in the larger Colorado River Basin. The district claims to limit annual outdoor water usage at 43,000 gallons per year, but indoor use and enforcement mechanisms are not mentioned.

While St George has adopted the district's standards, golf courses remain largely exempt from meaningful restrictions. Instead of curbing their water use, courses are required only to submit conservation plans for city review (Washington County Water Conservancy District, 2023). In 2024, the city allowed real estate developers to build 5000 “water-efficient” homes rather than accept limitations, a decision that adds significant demand to the local water supply (Eddington, 2024). Although the 2023 standards are presented as “water-efficient,” the addition of 5000 new users is significant for a water system which serves an estimated 37,000 residential users (City of St George, 2019). Since the water efficiency standards do not address indoor water consumption, there will still be 5000 new households using water for daily activities regardless of water saved from lawn reductions. This regulatory leniency, combined with public investments in private golf developments—such as the $7.5 million allocated for improvements in luxury golf communities— illustrates how local governments prioritize elite recreation and larger non-local development interests over public needs.

These new regulations are the beginning of local ordinances addressing golf courses in St George, but they do not address the political-economic entanglement between golf and the city. In St George, local public funding is often diverted towards golf development. For example, in 2019, the City invested millions of dollars into upgrading water infrastructure for the several golf courses that consume public water. One of these golf courses is Entrada, which stretches 7065 yards and has 18 holes. Though originally open to the public in 1996, Entrada privatized in 2006. Entrada is managed by Troon Golf, “the world's largest golf management company, overseeing operations at properties located in 31 states and 26 countries.” In 2022, Entrada boasted its full replacement of both the irrigation and drainage systems, as well as the renovation of irrigation lakes (Entrada at Snow Canyon, 2024). Entrada does not mention that the club received $1.1 million from the city government for this renovation (City of St George, 2019). Similarly, the city planned for more than $5.5 million in capital improvement projects for the Ledges residential golf community, planned between 2023 and 2026. The Ledges will contribute 35% cost on two of the pumping stations, totalling just $721,350 of the entire project (City of St George, 2019). In addition to the cost of water treatment, which is paid by the public as well, golf tourism occupies a grey area of the public-private divide.

Dynamics between public and private interests over water resources and their costs are not unfamiliar to the political ecology of water. The private use of public water resources creates tension between residents and private owners, particularly when resources are scarce (Warner and Meluso, 2022). What the case of golf in St George shows, however, is that these dynamics are not limited to industrial production of commodities but extend into recreational tourism. Golf tourism, in coordination with luxury real estate development, extracts public resources to serve private interests. This transaction is materialized through both water and public funding, resulting in heightened inequalities at a local scale and larger environmental concerns at a regional scale. The situation is not unlike other cities experiencing tension between local needs and international tourism, although the specificities of golf and its reputation as recreation for the wealthy add further nuance to issues of gentrification.

Economic

The golf tourism industry uses several strategies of diversion to justify its environmental and social impact, usually engaging in scale, economic benefits, and pointing towards other industries as larger contributors to water crisis. These tactics, common in other extractive industries such as mining and oil, largely go unexamined in the media (Moberg, 2002). In an effort to deconstruct discourses surrounding golf tourism, we will highlight these strategies through the context of economic “benefits” and environmental greenwashing.

First, the golf industry downplays its role in Utah's water crisis by strategically framing its consumption at the state level. The Utah Golf Association (UGA) argues that golf courses use less than 1 percent of total diverted water, pointing instead to agriculture as the primary consumer (UGA, 2020). However, this framing obscures local impact. While agriculture remains dominant statewide, St George has more land dedicated to golf courses than irrigated farmland. The county's 13 golf courses occupy 13,196 acres, surpassing the 12,984 acres used for agriculture (U.S. Census of Agriculture, 2017). Further, we estimate that in 2022, golf courses accounted for 38 percent of the total secondary water use in the county (Utah, 2024). The choice of scale in analyzing water consumption is a political decision, not a neutral or technical one (Sayre, 2019). By emphasizing statewide figures rather than local conditions, the golf tourism industry evades accountability for its role in intensifying water scarcity. From a hydrosocial perspective, scales are not natural or fixed but produced through frictions among social practices, environmental processes, and structural forces (Bridge and Perreault, 2009; Boelens et al., 2016). This selective framing, which privileges broad metrics over local realities, legitimizes the continued expansion of golf developments even as drought intensifies and pressure on water resources grows.

The golf industry also justifies its environmental impact by emphasizing economic benefits. Devin Dehlin, executive director of the Utah Section PGA, reinforced this, stating, “what the sport brings economic-wise is the story we want to tell” (Shaw, 2023). UGA claims golf course water use yields higher economic returns than all major crops in Utah (UGA, 2020), citing $5529 per acre-foot of water for 11,586 irrigated acres. However, this figure is underestimated — Washington County alone irrigates over 13,000 acres. Based on a 2009 study with low response rates, UGA's data overstates economic benefits while downplaying environmental costs. This misrepresentation constructs an illusion of high returns with little risk, justifying expansion while ignoring golf's dependence on water. Figure 5

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Figure 5.

Location and water consumption (Acre/feet) of golf courses in St. George in 2022.

When St George built the Dixie Red Hills public golf course in 1965, the city quickly became a golfer's paradise, attracting private courses and luxury developments. According to Colby Cowan, director of golf operations for the City of St George, “the golf course was built as a sort of vision for growth in the area.” Looking at the history of this town, and the broader Southwest region as a sacrifice zone for nuclear testing (Church and Brooks, 2020; Kuletz, 2016), shows that cities like St George have long been aligned with national and regional economic development goals. From this perspective, golf developments are not isolated projects but continuations of a pattern in which public investment drives growth while risks and environmental costs are externalized.

The promise of economic development is a key justification for golf development – though its returns to local communities are questionable. Cowan estimates the 14 golf courses located within Washington County attract nearly 600,000 visitors a year, generating $130 million dollars annually (Shaw, 2023). However, policy researchers from the University of Utah report that only 64,000 visitors stayed in St George in 2023 (Harris, Leaver and Albers, 2024). Therefore the amount of economic development golf tourism actually brings to the community is arguable, and these economic benefits are not evenly distributed. Questions of ownership are central here: who actually profits from this industry? Some private clubs are member-owned and operate similarly to non-profits, where revenue is reinvested into capital improvements and facilities upgrades. Other clubs are investor-owned and drive revenue out of the local community, even though the city continues to fund capital improvements (for example Troon Golf, mentioned in the previous section). Regardless of ownership, the construction and maintenance of private golf clubs largely benefits out-of-state investors and real estate developers, exacerbating existing inequalities.

As developers continue to profit from golf tourism, wealth inequality is growing in St George. The median listing price for housing in St George was $660,000 in September 2024, while the average weekly wage for employees was $926, for an average annual income of $48,152 (U.S. Federal Housing Finance Agency, 2024; U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2024). Development of luxury golf communities means higher prices for everyone, including long-term residents who support the local economy through their labor. As mentioned in the Study Area section, secondary housing and short-term rentals are driving higher home prices in the area. What is happening in St George is not unique. Across the globe, tourism-driven development fuels gentrification, privileging wealthy outsiders over local residents (Lees, 2008). Luxury investment displaces communities, inflates housing costs, and deepens inequality.

The significance of this issue reaches far beyond Utah's golf industry. Across sectors, industries justify environmental harm by highlighting economic benefits while minimizing ecological costs, abstracting “the economy” from its material basis in land, water, and labor (Bakker, 2013). This framing disguises the fact that profitability is inseparable from environmental impact, normalizing risk as an unavoidable byproduct of development. As Kirsch (2014) argues, such risks are presented as natural outcomes of modernity rather than as contingent relations between states, corporations, and environments that could be organized differently. This logic is not unique to golf; mining, industrial agriculture, and tourism in arid regions all employ similar narratives of indispensability. In each case, economic viability is inseparable from the ecological systems that sustain it, and recognizing that interdependence is essential for building more sustainable futures.

Social

One important explanation for the unusual patterns of water use in arid regions like the American West lies in the intersection of cultural and political values. While these dimensions can be analyzed separately, as Ward (2001) suggests in their study of the Colorado River Basin, it is particularly insightful to consider them together to understand how water is managed and perceived. Technological development, driven by political decisions, has led to the construction of major infrastructures such as dams and diversions, fundamentally altering the river's natural flow and contributing to a geo-environmental disconnection. This physical separation has been mirrored by a social and cultural detachment from the river itself, commodified water and transformed the relationship between people and water into a more impersonal one.

At the same time, cultural ideas about wealth and comfort led to the creation of artificial landscapes such as lawns, fountains, man-made lakes, especially after the 1960s. As Ward points out, these artificial paradises were built at the expense of the river's natural ecosystems, particularly in the delta. The construction of golf courses in the region is another example of this pattern, where green spaces are created for leisure in dry environments where such lushness is not “natural.” These artificial landscapes offer a version of nature that some people enjoy, but they often obscure or overwrite the ecological and cultural realities of the landscape.

The construction of water-intensive landscapes in arid regions is not exclusive to the Western U.S., but is a common practice across the world, famously in Dubai, United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia (Abdella et al., 2024; Bagaeen, 2007; Koch, 2024). For cities in arid climates, the construction of water infrastructure and water-intensive green spaces are often demonstrations of modernity, wealth, and spectacle (Koch, 2024; Swyngedouw, 1999). In this view, modern technological development allows cities to create recreational opportunities despite climatological limitations. In the American Southwest, the pursuit of modernity through golf tourism also serves to erase histories of land theft from local Indigenous communities, supporting economic development through the mining industry and state-funded nuclear weapons testing. Golf tourism allows these same systems, which continue to influence the environmental and social landscape, to rebrand themselves towards outdoor recreation and thus reproduce uneven relationships of power.

The lawn itself is well-documented in political ecology literature as a status symbol and the production of the American class system (Duncan, 2004; Robbins, 2007). Similarly, recreational opportunities for golf are only available to those initiated into private club membership. Development of golf tourism thus reinforces segregated spaces of privilege and exclusion.

As mentioned in the Introduction, modern golf courses in the Western U.S. are rarely public, and are rarely just golf courses themselves. They are often intertwined with luxury residential properties, built to attract tourists, secondary homeowners, and property investors. The economic reliance on golf tourism in St George has facilitated rapid residential golf development, particularly since golf appeals as an indicator of wealth and an aspirational form of recreation. In coordination with luxury residential construction, which increasingly functions as asset storage for wealthy investors, residential golf developments contribute to uneven development and heightened inequality (Soules, 2021, p. 142). Further, “nature” residing within a private golf course excludes public participation, and defines a very particular type of social interaction which benefits the predominantly wealthy, white, and male club members.

Golf encourages social interaction for an elite subset of the population, excluding those who cannot afford membership fees, expensive equipment, or luxury property. Even if one is able to access the space through class, private golf clubs continue to exclude based on race and gender (Ceron-Anaya, 2019; Gray, 2025). For some, social exclusion is an appeal of golf club participation. Its early history in American culture is, in fact, built on the adoption of codes of conduct, definitions of “civility,” and segregation by race and class (Heidt et al., 2025; Varner and Knottnerus, 2002). The social exclusion taking place on private golf courses echoes the other environmental, political, and economic issues raised here, asking who benefits from its investment and development.