A private golf course in Marana is under investigation by the Arizona Department of Agriculture after a landscaping crew was filmed cutting down two mature saguaros during preparations for an upcoming professional tournament.
The cell phone video, shot by golfer Jerry Parker on Feb. 7, shows a worker slicing sections from one of the decades-old cactuses at The Gallery Golf Club at Dove Mountain.
Two other men can be seen using pitchforks to toss the pieces into the bed of a truck as the course gets ready to host the LIV Golf League’s Tucson tournament on March 17-19.
“I saw these guys taking a chainsaw to them and I was appalled, so I took my phone out and started filming,” said Parker, a self-described “snowbird” from Calgary, Alberta, who has been spending his winters in Tucson for the past 18 years. “They just cut them down like a cucumber. It was atrocious.”
Saguaros are protected native plants under state law, but private landowners are allowed to transplant or remove the cactuses on their own property. As long as the area being cleared is smaller than one acre, the only requirement of the owner is to notify the Department of Agriculture at least 20 days before any saguaros are destroyed.
That does not appear to have happened in this case, according to Heather Flowers, the department’s assistant director for strategic initiatives and policy.
Flowers said in an email that state agriculture officials have found no record of a notice of intent from The Gallery to cut down the cactuses. “We are currently conducting an investigation related to this action,” she said.
Messages left for The Gallery’s general manager were not returned. Escalante Golf, the Fort Worth, Texas-based owner of both The Gallery and the nearby Golf Club at Dove Mountain, declined to comment for this story.
A violation of the state’s native plant rules can result in a misdemeanor charge carrying up to a month in jail and a fine of up to $500.
State laws governing the removal of saguaros do not apply to individually owned residential properties of 10 acres or less where initial construction has already occurred. With a few exceptions, individual homeowners are free to cut down saguaros on their land without notifying state officials in advance.
Outraged golfer films landscaping crew at The Gallery Golf Club at Dove Mountain.
No ‘worse optic’
Parker said a temporary viewing platform now stands where the two cactuses once grew between the first and 18th holes on The Gallery’s South Course.
The saguaro being cut down in his video looked 12 to 15 feet tall. He guessed the other one was just as tall or taller.
Scientific studies conducted in the Tucson Mountains show it can take the famously slow-growing cactus more than 60 years to reach that height, though the process can be sped up somewhat by access to supplemental water and other factors.
Parker’s video sparked outrage as soon as it appeared on the social media site Nextdoor. Before long, he was fielding inquiries from local media outlets.
At about the same time, Marana town councilwoman Roxanne Ziegler received a sudden barrage of calls and text messages from angry constituents. “My phone has never blown up like this,” she said.
Once Ziegler saw the footage for herself, she understood why. “It just kind of stopped me in my tracks. I thought, ‘What in the world is this?’”
Ziegler said she eventually met with The Gallery’s general manager and two representatives from LIV Golf, who took her out to the 18th hole to show her the viewing platform and explain what happened. She said they told her the saguaros were unstable and must be taken down for safety reasons.
Golf course officials later pledged to plant “two nice sized saguaros” after the tournament to replace the ones that were removed. Ziegler praised that as a “quick and positive resolution” to the situation, but she knows it doesn’t satisfy everyone.
“Chain-sawing a cactus? That couldn’t have been a worse optic,” she said. “A lot of people are still upset with it, and I don’t blame them.”
All for LIV
Ultimately, though, Ziegler thinks a little perspective might be in order.
She has lived in Marana for more than 30 years and served the town as a council member and planning commissioner for most of that time. She remembers touring the Dove Mountain site before the master-planned community had even been built. Back then, she said, that area was “nothing but saguaros.”
Anyone who now lives in or around Dove Mountain can be reasonably certain that at least a few of the iconic cactuses were probably moved or taken down to make way for their homes. That’s just the reality of living in “a growth community” like Marana, Ziegler said.
Parker sees her point, but to him, clearing a patch of desert for a house that will last for generations is a lot different than cutting down something that’s been growing for decades just to accommodate spectators at a one-time event.
“It’s pathetic what happened for a three-day tournament,” he said.
LIV Golf is no stranger to bad press. The professional tour was launched in 2021 as a rival to the PGA, but it immediately drew criticism for its primary source of financing: the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia.
Some human rights groups, journalists and golf commentators say LIV is a vehicle for something they call “sportswashing,” a strategy by the Saudi royal family to use professional athletics to cover over its global reputation for repression and human rights abuses.
Meanwhile, the huge tournament purses and even bigger signing bonuses LIV is offering have enticed dozens of professional golfers to join, including several players with major championships and number-one rankings on their résumés.
So far, Parker said, no one at his golf club has given him any grief about shooting the video and sharing it with neighbors and news outlets. He hopes that doesn’t change because he still loves playing at The Gallery and wants to keep his membership there.
But he has no regrets, regardless.
“I’ll accept whatever consequences come my way,” Parker said. “What they did was wrong.”
Outraged golfer films landscaping crew at The Gallery Golf Club at Dove Mountain.
