Spain’s golf courses leading the way in Europe

Ahead of World Earth Day on 22nd April, new research by Time2play has analysed how many of Europe’s top 50 golf courses are truly making their greens ‘greener’, with Spain top for popularity.

Less than a quarter of the most popular golf courses are sustainable, Italy leads the way with three GEO accredited course, however, Spain boasts the most popular course in Europe and goes above and beyond for sustainability.

Europe’s most popular golf course, Club de Golf Alcanada, of Alcudia in Spain can celebrate first place for popularity but more importantly for its sustainability efforts.

Club de Golf Alcanada has made wildlife conservation a priority and partnered with a beekeeping company to install six beehives along the coastline of the course, now home to around 300,000 bees, with the greenkeeper taking care of them.

As well as this, Club de Golf has taken a variety of steps to become more sustainable including having solar-powered buggies, charging stations for electric cars have been installed and they only selling water that is in reused Tetra Brik. In addition, two donkeys on the site are used to remove unwanted plants.

GEO Foundation certification awards international courses accreditation by measuring how sustainable each course is run and maintained with areas such as recyclable tees, rewilding surrounding areas, and running events with zero-waste just some of the actions courses take.

Sustainability is a growing issue as sportsmen, clubs, and supporters look to find ways to preserve the games they love for future generations. By looking at how few of the most popular courses across the continent are sustainable, it shows golf still has some way to go to address its impact on acres of land across Europe before we can say that the greens we play are truly certified ‘green’.  

A spokesperson for Time2play has said, “It’s becoming increasingly important that we maintain our golf courses for future generations. World Earth Day highlights the issue that more eco-friendly changes need to be made.”

“It’s shocking to see that less than a quarter of the most popular golf courses have been deemed GEO Certified, revealing that Europe still has a long way to go in reducing the impact of its courses on the environment.”

“We want to highlight those that are already taking positive steps in running a sustainable course  and to encourage everyone to make greener decisions when choosing to play their next round.”

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