‘Our green is brown’: the eco-friendly Sahel golf club avoiding the water hazard

Gilbert Kaboré, who started as a caddy at the age of six, is now a golf instructor. Photograph: Ouagadougou Golf ClubGolf Club Naba Gninbolbo was constructed and conceived in 1975 by the village chief of Balkuy along with a German friend. The two decided to convert farmland into a golf course, which started with nine holes and later expanded to 18.

“Our green is brown,” says Abdoul Tapsoba, who is the son of the founder and director of the club. Tapsoba is proud that the course is approved by the French golf federation.Cows, sheep, and goats wander through the golf course and during the rainy season, they are responsible for eating the grass.“We use between 200 and 300 litres of water a day to keep the club running smoothly,” says Salif Samaké, the president of the Burkinabé golf federation.

In the past decade and a half, the industry has made more noise about its environmental impact, with courses announcing plans to become eco-friendly, to the extent that Golf World now publishes an, highlighting the greenest courses in Europe. The scale of the initiatives varies, from courses that make their own bread or have moved over to LED lights, to courses that have sheep maintain the grass, or have invested in solar panels or created large water and wild areas.

But Naba Gninbolbo has found its own way. In Burkina Faso only 47% of the population has access to clean drinking water close to home, according to the NGO WaterAid West.

“The club is situated on a hill, we have views of the city and coexist with the animals that sleep on the greens at night,” says Samaké, adding: “We play with the earth, the dust, with the nature we have, we haven’t cut down a single tree.”

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