Badgers Wreck Drought-Protected UK Golf Courses
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- England and Wales endured the driest July since records began in 1836, with 26 million people currently living under a hosepipe ban.
- The Water Use (Temporary Bans) Order 2010 exempts sports turf from restrictions, letting golf courses keep their greens irrigated while households cannot.
- Golf courses from Suffolk to Staffordshire to Worcestershire have reported greens torn up by badgers searching for food.
- Jim Croxton, chief executive of the British and International Golf Greenkeepers Association, said badgers dig turf to find food, and that August begins the period when chafer grubs are generally present underground.
- The drought has baked the earth hard nationwide, making badgers' usual underground food sources inaccessible everywhere except the irrigated golf courses.
Why it matters: The Water Use (Temporary Bans) Order 2010 lets golf courses keep their greens lush while 26 million households share bathwater — and now badgers, driven to those irrigated courses for food, are tearing up the very exemption that kept the turf green. The carve-out has turned from a regulatory footnote into a pest-control liability for greenkeepers across at least three English counties, with one ripped-up course already drawing furious public complaints.
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