MARION, MASSACHUSETTS | Founded a century ago, the Kittansett Club took its name from two Native American words: “kittan” meaning sea and “sett” for near. That was a very apt appellation for an association whose William Flynn golf course was routed on a spit of land jutting into Buzzards Bay off Cape Cod. The scallop shell chosen by founders as the club’s logo only reinforced the fact that Kittansett was located on the water.
Sweeping seaside views have been a hallmark of the club from the very beginning. And those vistas were greatly improved after architectural consultant Gil Hanse felled hundreds of trees at the turn of the 21st century, largely in an effort to improve air circulation and turf conditions. Coupled with other changes made by the designer, the move bolstered the course’s stature as one of the best-designed in America as well as one of the most scenic.
As beautiful as that seaside setting is, however, it presents its own set of problems in this age of climate change, global warming and rising seas. And members understandably are worried about whether the waters of Buzzards Bay will one day start flooding their course with regularity.
“It’s a bad situation,” said Don Anderson, a longtime Kittansett member as well as a senior scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. “Sea levels are rising, and that presents real concerns given our location and the fact that seawater has so many ways to come onto our golf course.”
The good news is that even as Kittansett members fret about the situation, they also are coming together to address the issue.
“We recognize that something is happening and that we have to act,” said Anderson, an avid golfer who has won multiple club championships at Kittansett as well as two state titles. “Not rashly or precipitously, but with great care and consideration. We are one of the first clubs in the country to take on this problem. We do not yet know exactly what we will do, as we are still developing options and determining a course of action based on what we discover in our research and what our engineering consultants advise. But whatever we decide, we are committed to making decisions based on thorough and defensible science and engineering options.”
A recent report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration indicates oceans have risen 8 to 9 inches since 1880. On the face, that progression does not sound dire. But what is alarming is data in those documents showing the rate of increase has jumped dramatically in the past two decades, with sea levels expected to rise by as much as another foot by 2050.
Whether they actually surge by that amount over the next few decades remains to be seen. But there is no denying sea levels are indeed rising, and doing so at an accelerated pace.
The reasons for that phenomenon are fairly cut-and-dried. The earth has been warming for decades due to the greenhouse gases produced by the burning of fossil fuels trapping the sun’s radiation in the atmosphere. That causes glaciers and ice sheets to melt as it also initiates something called thermal expansion, which leads the oceans and seas to swell, because warmer water takes up more space. Water levels rise as a result.
Another factor is naturally occurring subsidence, which is defined as the gradual sinking or caving in of land and is prevalent in low-lying coastal areas.
Kittansett is one such place.
Part of the club’s approach to this matter has entailed the creation of a subcommittee on rising seas.
“We have been very systematic in our approach,” said Anderson, a member of the subcommittee. “We obtained high-resolution land elevation data on the course through drone flyovers, and that included the greens, so we can rebuild them to present-day contours. Then, we used the elevations with a computer model that simulates the hydrodynamic processes that affect coastal water levels, such as currents, tides and winds and considers a range of assumptions about greenhouse gas emissions, thermal expansion and the melting of glaciers and ice sheets. That way, we can figure out where the problem areas on the course are, such as the low points and the pathways the water takes in each case.
“The idea is to simulate three conservative scenarios of sea level rises. One is for no more than 1.3 feet above the 2008 baseline (the average from 1999 to 2017) by 2030. And others of no more than 2.6 feet above the baseline by 2050, and no more than 4.5 feet by 2070. And we keep in mind as we do this that mean sea level is variable through time, and that these projections are on the high end of the probability range as to not under-predict climate-change impacts.
“With that information, we can then make informed decisions of where to act on the golf course with each scenario, what kind of actions we have to undertake and then how we prioritize them,” Anderson added. “Do we raise certain fairways and greens? Do we build berms? And as we look at those options and decide the most effective ways to proceed, we also look at costs.”
Throughout its history, the Kittansett golf course has been ravaged by hurricanes and nor’easters flooding the clubhouse and pro shop, lifting cottages off their foundations before carrying them into the roiling waters of the bay and littering the grounds with debris.
“We know we cannot stop storms or protect the course from them,” Anderson said. “But we really don’t have to because they are relatively rare occurrences that the course can recover from. What happens, however, if rising seas lead to the golf course flooding multiple times every month during high tides? Or even a couple of times a week? That’s our concern, and that’s why we are doing the work on this.”
Kittansett members are still sorting out the situation and have yet to decide on a course of action. But in deciding to tackle what appears to be a critical and rather complicated problem, they are all but ensuring a better future for their association. And at the same time, they are alerting the rest of the golf industry as to the importance of this issue and showing them how they might combat the problem of rising seas.