Water-wasting is not a red herring if you live in an area where droughts are an issue. It just isn't a problem everywhere universally.
(... Palm Springs has around 100 golf courses)
> As a historical U.S. benchmark, an average 18-hole facility had about 80.7 irrigated turf acres and used approximately 152.5 acre-feet/year—about 49.7 million gallons (188 million litres) annually.
So about 220.
But it's still, ahem, a drop in the bucket compared to the California almond industry.
(I was only half joking)