It seems you have all but achieved your goal of ruining one of the nation’s most important golf facilities in Moore Park (apparently in the name of increased housing) so what comes next?

Once the 75,000 extra homes per year for the next five years have been built and the pressure to build more remains, where does the ‘new’ green space come from then?

The other nine holes of Moore Park? And after that?

Oh, not your problem by then. I see.

Congratulations on a staggering exhibition of short sightedness, even for a group of people for whom short sightedness is a stock in trade.

For those perhaps just catching up it seems all but a done deal that Moore Park Golf Course, 5 kilometres from Sydney’s CBD and one of, if not the busiest golf course in Australia, will be reduced to nine holes in 2026 to become – wait for it – mostly a park.

Yes, a park. Right next to one of the biggest parks already in Australia. It would almost be less offensive it the plan was to turn it into houses.

Housing is, of course, at the centre of this decision though even those who are anti golf would not be bold enough to suggest the leap straight from golf course to urban streetscape.

Moore Park receives 500,000 visitors per year, where to for them? PHOTO: Matt King/Getty Images.

However, what is happening at Moore Park is just one step removed from that with the nine holes being resumed so that politicians and councils can build housing elsewhere and claim the people living in them have access to ‘green space’.

(Again, golf courses ARE green space and the offensive practice of pretending they somehow aren’t needs to stop. Also, simple maths tells you at least a percentage of those people moving into those houses would like at least some of their green space to be golf but apparently that matters nought. That’s their problem.)

But we digress.

The biggest issue here is hiding in plain sight, and it is bigger than the stupidity of taking one of the city’s most successful golf businesses and deliberately destroying it.

It’s the short-term nature of the thinking.

NSW has a housing target to meet under a nationally agreed housing strategy and the number is 75,000 per year for the next five years.

Five years.

Think about that, in terms of a city the size of Sydney or a country as broad and diverse as Australia.

Five years.

"But beyond Moore Park think about the bigger implications of this announcement. No matter your preferred recreation or leisure activity, think about what it would mean if you were told it had to be sacrificed for the ‘greater good’."

It’s barely a blip in time, let alone a serious attempt to map out a decent future for a city, state or country and its people.

So in five years’ time when we are back here again, and the government of the day needs to create more housing, and announces solemnly that the remaining nine holes of Moore Park now need to be resumed to become ‘green space’, what then?

And five years after that? Or 10 years? Or, god forbid, even 50 years?

The bigger picture here is about urban spaces and what activities people who live in them deserve to have access to.

Apparently, golf isn’t one in the minds of many though those same people might have a different response if you were to suggest cricket or soccer should be removed from the list of ‘acceptable’ recreations.

Over the coming days and weeks you will read and hear a bunch of Moore Park related statistics, many of which I have listed below.

They are important and involve real people having their access to an important recreation taken away in the name of short term political opportunism.

But beyond Moore Park think about the bigger implications of this announcement. No matter your preferred recreation or leisure activity, think about what it would mean if you were told it had to be sacrificed for the ‘greater good’.

Because that’s what’s happening here.

A variation of the famous words of Pastor Martin Niemoller (yes, I had to look that up) come to mind:

First they came for the Communists

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a Communist

Then they came for the Socialists

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a Socialist …

And so on. You get the idea.

So to Clover Moore and Bob Carr and those in the NSW government planning to execute this strategy, perhaps stop and give that saying some thought.

Just because golf isn’t your preferred recreation doesn’t mean it has no value. And some of the numbers below – and the questions your strategy raises – are proof of that.

  • Each year more there are more than half a million visits to Moore Park (across driving range, golf course and clubhouse) and 82 percent of those people visiting live within 10kms. Of those, 18 hole rounds account for 80 percent of the 90,824 annual total. (Any thoughts on how these people will fit into half the course, Bob Carr? It would be akin to taking a busy public library and turning half of it into apartments. And using the books lost as the foundations.)
     
  • 27,418 students attended the Sydney Golf Academy in 2022/23. That’s 78 percent more than 2019. But even more important, there is a 74 percent higher women’s enrolment in introductory groups. (Surely women participating in sport is a good thing to be encouraged, Lord Mayor Moore?)
     
  • 302,840kms walked/121,136 calories burnt per annum. That’s the estimates for rounds walked at Moore Park. There is a reason studies show golfers live longer and that golf helps with chronic diseases as well as improved balance and muscle endurance. (‘Passive sport’ is apparently one of the goals of the new park. What are the chances these figures are matched or exceeded?)
     
  • $3.2 million. That’s the amount spent on green fees and membership at Moore Park annually. (Aside from losing much of this revenue there is also the added cost of now maintaining the new park. A classic lose/lose if ever there was one.)
     
  • A quarter of those who use the golf facilities at Moore are aged 18-35. (Malcom Gladwell can stick his ‘crack cocaine for old white guys’ where the sun doesn’t shine, thanks very much.)
     
  • Like all golf courses Moore Park provides important environmental benefits. Among them are urban cooling, flood and stormwater management, water filtration and purification and carbon sequestration. According to the Community Benefits of Golf in Australia report released last week: “Academics at the University of Melbourne undertook an assessment of golf course biodiversity, and found:

* The structural complexity of vegetation on golf courses is around 50-100 percent higher than that of residential gardens and urban parklands.

*Beetle and bug abundance on golf courses is 6-10 times greater than that within other nearby parks.

*Bee species richness on golf courses is around 3-4 times that of remnant heathlands.

*There are around 50 percent more bird species on golf courses than in urban gardens and parks.

(Another lose/lose. Downgrade the environmental benefits of a golf course by replacing it with a facility proven to be less environmentally friendly. Oh, and also add in the cost of maintaining that less environmentally friendly area since the golf course returned a financial benefit but the park won’t. Good job, NSW government.)