For decades, golf courses have symbolized affluence, recreation, and peace of mind. But beneath the manicured greens lies a chemical reality few discuss. These landscapes rely on heavy pesticide and fertilizer use — and new research shows serious consequences for those who live, work, or even breathe near them.

If you smoke weed on or around a golf course, you could be inhaling far more than cannabis. You might be breathing in a mix of herbicides, fungicides, and fertilizers known to contaminate air, soil, and water around America’s golf courses.

The Science: 126% Higher Parkinson’s Risk Within One Mile

A 2025 study published in JAMA Network Open by researchers from Barrow Neurological Institute and Mayo Clinic examined more than 13,000 residents in Minnesota and Wisconsin. The study found that people living within one mile of a golf course had a 126% higher chance of developing Parkinson’s disease than those living more than six miles away.

• Residents within 1–3 miles showed elevated risk that decreased with distance.

• Those sharing a water service area with a golf course had nearly double the odds of Parkinson’s.

• The danger was greatest in regions with vulnerable groundwater—meaning porous soils or shallow aquifers that allow chemicals to leach into drinking water.

The study concluded that chemical exposure from pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides likely contributes to this pattern. While correlation doesn’t prove causation, the evidence strongly suggests that proximity to golf courses is a meaningful health risk.

Chemicals of Concern

Golf courses use a cocktail of synthetic chemicals — some banned in agriculture but still legal for turf. These include:

• 2,4-D (dichlorophenoxyacetic acid) – linked to neurological disorders and non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

• Chlorpyrifos – a neurotoxic pesticide banned for food crops but still permitted in some turf applications until recently.

• Carbaryl (Sevin) – an insecticide associated with nervous system damage.

• Fungicides like iprodione and chlorothalonil – both suspected carcinogens and groundwater contaminants.

A Beyond Pesticides analysis found that U.S. golf courses apply chemicals at up to 15 times higher rates than European courses, with weaker restrictions and almost no public reporting.

Known Cases and Events

• In Naples, Florida, the U.S. Geological Survey found pesticide residues in irrigation ponds and groundwater at multiple golf courses, including diazinon and chlorpyrifos — both neurotoxic.

• In Scottsdale, Arizona, a 2018 groundwater survey found organophosphate contamination linked to nearby golf courses, leading to well shutdowns.

• The 2025 JAMA study echoed a long-term pattern previously observed in California farmworker communities, where paraquat exposure from weedkillers has been linked to increased Parkinson’s disease risk.

• The Guardian reported that low-income Latino communities in California’s Central Valley face elevated Parkinson’s risk from paraquat — a herbicide often used on golf courses and decorative landscapes as well as agriculture.

• Multiple lawsuits have emerged in recent years over pesticide exposure among golf-course maintenance workers in Florida and New York, citing nerve damage and respiratory illness.

These examples show a consistent pattern: where there are golf courses, there is chemical contamination — and often human cost.

Smoking Weed in Polluted Air

Here’s where it gets even more serious. Many people assume that smoking organic or dispensary-tested weed means clean consumption. But the air you breathe matters just as much as the flower you burn.

When you light up near a golf course, you inhale:

1. Cannabis smoke — organic plant matter combustion.

2. Ambient air — which may carry volatile pesticide residues and micro-droplets of turf spray.

Your lungs don’t distinguish between the two. Inhaling cannabis in chemically polluted air effectively delivers those turf toxins deeper into your respiratory system. The result: exposure to both the pollutants and the combustion by-products, compounding risk to your nervous and cardiovascular systems.

If you’re going to smoke weed, do it where the air is truly clean. That means far away from maintained turf, roadways, and chemical zones — ideally deep in nature or in a filtered indoor environment.

Living and Working Near Golf Courses: Real-World Impact

Golf-course employees — especially greenskeepers, irrigation techs, and landscapers — experience direct exposure. Lawsuits filed by workers in Florida, New York, and California describe rashes, headaches, tremors, and respiratory distress after years of contact with turf chemicals.

Residents living nearby report chronic coughing and nausea after spray events. One woman in Temecula, California, living adjacent to a golf course, told reporters that her dog developed seizures after rainfall runoff flowed through her yard — runoff that tested positive for 2,4-D.

These stories mirror what science is now quantifying: that living, working, or even spending time near golf courses carries significant health risks — and that these risks extend to anyone inhaling air in those zones.

The Cultural Disconnect

Golf courses are marketed as sanctuaries — symbols of success, leisure, and “good clean living.” But in truth, they’re artificial ecosystems maintained through chemical warfare on weeds and insects.

Weed culture, meanwhile, celebrates “natural highs,” organic farming, and harmony with nature. Yet the irony is painful: people smoke the most natural plant on Earth while standing on some of the most unnatural ground humans have ever cultivated.

As the Rolling Stones sang after the Altamont Speedway tragedy — “You can’t always get what you want.” That was the night the 1960s dream died, a symbol of how commercial forces corrupted a generation’s ideals. Golf courses are the same contradiction: beauty masking harm.

Practical Advice

If you live, work, or smoke near a golf course:

• Know your exposure radius. The highest risk zone is within one mile; measurable effects extend to five miles in some studies.

• Test your water at least twice a year if your property uses well water or sits within a shared municipal system serving a golf course.

• Don’t smoke outside during or after spraying events. Chemical drift can remain airborne for hours.

• Use HEPA air filters indoors if you live nearby.

• Avoid mowing or walking barefoot in areas bordering fairways or drainage ditches.

• Advocate for transparency. Many local courses are privately owned and not required to disclose pesticide schedules. Pressure them to publish spray times and chemicals used.

Conclusion

Golf courses may look clean, but the data say otherwise. From Minnesota to Florida, from groundwater samples to neurological health studies, the message is consistent: proximity equals exposure.

If you’re going to smoke cannabis, make sure the air you breathe isn’t poisoned by someone else’s idea of beauty. Real purity starts with clean air, clean soil, and natural ground — not chemically sterilized turf.