Let’s stop pretending we don’t see it.

We’ve spent decades dissecting Parkinson’s disease like it’s some mysterious, untouchable neurological riddle. Genes. Dopamine. Protein timing. Advanced therapies. Endless panels of very smart people explaining why we still don’t fully understand what’s happening.

And right in the middle of all that uncertainty, we’ve got acres of chemically engineered land being sprayed, maintained, and normalized like it’s part of the natural order.

Golf courses.

Not hidden. Not rare. Not subtle.

Just sitting there. Perfect.

The Part We’re Supposed to Ignore

Golf courses use pesticides.

That’s not an accusation. That’s the business model.

They don’t exist without chemical intervention. You don’t get flawless grass by asking nicely. You get it by controlling everything that tries to live on it.

And we already know something else.

Certain pesticides are associated with an increased risk of Parkinson’s disease.

So here we are, holding two pieces of information like they’ve never met.

Pesticides. Parkinson’s.

And acres upon acres of land designed to maximize exposure while looking like a screensaver.

But sure, let’s keep acting like the real mystery is still unsolved.

The Comfort of Not Asking

This is where it always breaks down.

No one wants to pull the thread.

Because once you do, it doesn’t stop at golf.

It moves into agriculture. Landscaping. Suburban perfection. The entire aesthetic we’ve built around controlling nature instead of coexisting with it.

That’s a bigger conversation.

So we don’t have it.

We keep the focus narrow. Safe. Academic.

We study the disease while ignoring the environment it exists in.

Clean data. Dirty reality.

“There’s No Direct Proof”

Of course there isn’t.

There never is at this stage.

There wasn’t “direct proof” when cigarettes were recommended by doctors.

There wasn’t “direct proof” when lead was everywhere.

There’s never direct proof when the system benefiting from the doubt is still intact.

There’s just enough evidence to make people uncomfortable, and just enough uncertainty to keep everything running.

That’s not caution.

That’s delay dresse up as responsibility.

So Let’s Do Something Completely Unreasonable

Let’s shut them down.

All of them.

Every golf course.

Not forever. Relax.

Just until we “look into it.”

We use that phrase all the time when we have no intention of actually changing anything. This time, let’s mean it.

Because if we’re being honest, the current approach is this:

Keep spraying. Keep maintaining. Keep monetizing.

And if, years from now, we discover we should have asked harder questions sooner, we’ll release a statement about how complex the issue was.

We’re very good at that part.

What We’re Really Protecting

Let’s drop the act.

This isn’t about science. It’s not even about golf.

It’s about what we’re willing to disrupt.

We will tear apart someone’s entire life in the name of managing a disease.

Medications. Surgeries. Devices. Adjustments. Side effects. Trade-offs stacked on top of trade-offs.

But we won’t question the systems that might be feeding into it in the first place.

Because that would be inconvenient.

Because that would cost money.

Because that would mean admitting we prioritized comfort over curiosity.

The Optics Problem

A person with Parkinson’s shakes.

A golf course doesn’t.

Guess which one gets investigated more.

For the Children, Because Of Course

You don’t even need to stretch this.

If there’s even a possibility that environmental exposure plays a role, then continuing without scrutiny isn’t neutral.

It’s a decision.

We’re choosing to keep things exactly as they are because they look good, feel normal, and generate revenue.

And we’re comfortable enough with that choice to explain it later.

Final Line

Shut them down.

Not because we’ve proven anything.

But because the longer something looks this perfect, the more likely it’s hiding something we’d rather not deal with.

And if we’re wrong?

Great.

We reopen the courses, congratulate ourselves on being thorough, and go back to arguing over handicaps.

But if we’re right, even a little?

Then the real question isn’t why we closed them.

It’s why we didn’t do it sooner.

*This is a parody written to close Parkinson’s Awareness Month. The problem isn’t that it’s fake. The problem is how little you had to stretch to believe it.