Why your golf game in Freeport stinks

The new woodsy golf course in Lake Jackson, "The Wilderness," is nicer than the old municipal golf course in Freeport, which is nestled next to the town's prolific petrochemical industry, which gives the grand game an unique but not especially pleasing industrial ambience.

For years, I've eavesdropped on golfers at the Freeport muni course bitch and moan about how their game stunk to high heaven.

Always chalked the complaining up to weekend duffers who just weren't very good at a game that can be quite difficult and humbling.

Now, however, I've stumbled upon another reason the Freeport golfers' games are in the toilet: the city irrigates the 68-acre course with treated domestic wastewater!

Freeport gets permission from the state for the golf course watering arrangement. And they just asked for an extension of the state permit to allow them to spray up to 30,000 gallons of treated wastewater per day on the course.

For those like me, who didn't know such trivia, this seems to provide Freeport fairway hackers an environmental reason for their crappy golf game.

As for the duffers who've defected to the new Lake Jackson course, we're sure they'll find other reasons for their par-busting scorecards -- all those big trees that lead to duck hooks every other tee shot, perhaps, or maybe those icky wetlands that seem to have a magnetic pull on their brand new Titleists.