The February 2008 issue of National Geographic magazine includes a piece titled Drying of the West, about water resource issues in the American West.  A caption that accompanies one of the photos (third from the left) reads:

“Well water allows the lush greens and fairways of the Primm Valley Golf Club to flourish in the Mojave Desert–a bone-dry blast furnace where only hardy desert plants normally survive. Though limits have been imposed, golf courses in nearby southern Nevada still use 8 percent of the region’s water.”

Is that possible?  Golf courses consume 8 percent of the region’s water?

To read more about golf, and its history as a country club sport, check out Richard J. Moss’s Golf and the American Country Club.