Water conservationists and golf course owners have never been the best of buddies. An eco-friendly golf course sounds like an oxymoron—a big green water hog sounds more familiar.

But last week, the New York Times posted an article about new wireless sensors that can help reduce water usage on golf courses. These "subterranean wireless sensors...monitor moisture, temperature and salinity in the soil and feed the data to a software network accessed remotely on a laptop, a handheld device or a desktop computer," reports NYT. Pretty clever, if you ask me.

These systems will help some golf courses save millions of gallons of water per year. This will cut operating costs and reduce the strain on drought-affected communities where water usage is a hotly contested issue.

Will water-saving sensor technology transform golf into a "green" sport? Surely, there are other factors to consider, including synthetic fertilizer and pesticide use, and responsible land management. But water conservation efforts are a step in the right direction, especially when considering the fact that we can use this technology for other applications such as soccer and football fields, public parks and recreational facilities.

At around $11,000 a pop, these systems are still out of reach for most Little League baseball fields and community recreation areas. But if golf courses begin adopting these systems en masse, manufacturers may start producing smaller, less expensive setups that will help athletic field owners across the country adopt smarter water management practices...

...Or lazier practices, since machines would actually be doing most of the work. I guess this saves time and energy that can be used to perfect that golf swing.

What do you think?