• Burkina Faso is at the forefront of water conservation.
• Ouagadougou Golf Club, founded in 1975, has an 18-hole.
• Sprinklers are especially important in desert environments.

When Burkina Faso makes headlines these days, it’s usually due to unrest or suffering, such as its jihadist insurgency, repeated military coups, or grinding poverty.

However, the landlocked Sahel country is at the forefront of one intriguing aspect: its sole golf club is a pioneer in bringing water conservation to this thirstiest of sports.

The Ouagadougou Golf Club, founded in 1975, has an 18-hole and two nine-hole courses, all of which are certified by the French Golf Federation.

The courses at the club, which is located on the outskirts of Burkina Faso, are a tawny colour due to the natural tint of the site.

There are no greens here, only “browns,” and the fairways are made up of earth, stones, and sinewy shrubs rather than manicured lawns.

Players may have to contend with a passing herd of goats, who may become vulnerable if a golfer hooks or slices a shot.

“Water is a very rare resource in Burkina Faso,” said Salif Samake, the club´s president, in an interview ahead of a UN conference on water opening in New York on Wednesday.

“Here we play golf in a natural setting… What we have here is a model that can be exported to other countries.”

Burkina Faso already faces severe water scarcity and is located in a region where drought and desertification are expected to worsen as a result of climate change, according to researchers.

A top-tier 18-hole golf course requires an average of 5,000 cubic metres (1.3 million US gallons) of water per day, which is equivalent to the daily consumption of a town of 12,000 people.

Sprinklers are especially important in desert environments.

There is the obvious loss due to evaporation, but there is also the issue of the water’s sustainability; it may have been drawn from aquifers rather than rivers, which can take hundreds of years to recharge.

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