Golf courses enjoy support for a very simple reason: The power of the people who love them. In idyllic, seaside Monterey, Calif., the rich white men running the Pebble Beach Company want to tear down at least 9,000 trees in nearby Del Monte Forest to build some new links that will be called -- what else? -- the Forest Course. And as if that weren't enough, the man leading the charge is none other than that squinty ex-mayor of nearby Carmel, actor Clint Eastwood, the leading member of the Pebble Beach Company's board of directors.
But while environmentalists and neighborhood groups face off against Eastwood and his low-handicap drifters, it's clear that what's going on here at Pebble Beach is representative of golf -- and its repercussions -- in general.
Pebble Beach executives are seeking final government approval to clear-cut at least 9,000 Monterey pines, which were once declared endangered by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization.
They do this not because there aren't enough courses in the area -- there are 23 places to practice your swing on the Monterey Peninsula, five of which the Pebble Beach Company owns -- they do this for the money. This, of course, is not how they presented the matter to local voters in November 2000 -- they sold it as a boon to nature. Golf course developers can thus be as deceptive as their unnaturally green projects.
On a trip to Pebble Beach, I tool around with superintendent Huesgen on his golf cart. The Pebble Beach Golf Links is, indeed, a gorgeous course -- particularly the much-photographed, fabled 7th hole which juts out on the tip of the jetty, with the surrounding crash of breaking waves in Stillwater Cove.
Huesgen says that the company is committed to the environment. As for the 9,000 Monterey pines his bosses want to chop down, "there's a lot more to it than taking down trees," he says. "You're right in saying that some trees will be removed, but that's only a small part of the story."
But there is reason to doubt the authenticity of the Pebble Beach Company's version of any "story." In November 2000, Monterey County voters had the chance to vote on Measure A, a ballot initiative pushed by Pebble Beach Co., that amended, for the second time, their 1992 request to build the Forest Course. Since the company was asking for permission to build fewer homes, and chop down fewer trees, than its previous two requests, the company figured it could sell Measure A as a pro-environment move. Voters were besieged with glossy fliers. One sent by a company-funded group called the "Committee to Preserve Del Monte Forest" featured lovely nature shots and language urging locals to "vote for the environment ... preserve the Del Monte Forest."
One word that never appears in the flier? "Golf."
Nothing about the minimum 9,000 Monterey pines that will be chopped, or the mountain lions, black bear, great horned owls, coyotes, deer or gray foxes that will be turned out of their homes. Even many pro-golf types roll their eyes when discussing the insatiability of Pebble Beach Company execs. When it comes to its lust for more courses, so as to accommodate more players and more fees, there's only one green guiding the executives' path.
The Pebble Beach Company sank an estimated $1 million into its campaign for Measure A. The environmentalists launched a $30,000 counter-effort, but their opponents' campaign included a very public role for Eastwood -- who in 1999 bought the company for $820 million with three other major (and myriad other minor) investors: 61-time U.S. PGA Tour winner Arnold Palmer, former baseball commissioner Peter Ueberroth, and ex-American Airlines honcho Richard Ferris. Omnipresent TV ads featured the 72-year-old actor/director and his 37-year-old wife, Diana Ruiz, a popular former anchor at the Salinas NBC station, standing in the middle of a pine forest selling Measure A as a green move. The measure passed overwhelmingly, by a 2-to-1 ratio.
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