Nashville is one of the most golf-dense cities in the country. From the historic fairways of Belle Meade Country Club to the public courses at Percy Warner Park, golfers have no shortage of options. For most residents, proximity to a golf course is a feature, not a concern — quiet open space, mature trees, an established neighborhood character.
But a landmark study published in early 2025 has changed the conversation. And if you're buying a home near one of Nashville's many courses, it's research worth understanding before you sign.
§ I · What the research found
In May 2025, researchers at the Barrow Neurological Institute and Mayo Clinic published a population-based case-control study in JAMA Network Open — one of the most respected peer-reviewed medical journals in the world.
The study (Krzyzanowski et al., 2025) analyzed 5,532 participants and examined the relationship between residential proximity to golf courses and the risk of developing Parkinson's disease.
People living within one mile of a golf course had a 126% increased risk of Parkinson's disease compared to those living more than six miles away. That's not a small signal. An adjusted odds ratio of 2.26 — adjusted for age, sex, and other confounders — represents a statistically significant finding with a confidence interval that doesn't cross 1.0. In epidemiology, this is meaningful evidence.
The researchers identified two primary exposure pathways:
1. Airborne pesticide drift. Golf courses apply pesticides — herbicides, fungicides, insecticides — at rates far exceeding typical residential or agricultural land. U.S. courses apply pesticides at up to 15 times the rate of European courses, and several of the chemicals routinely used (paraquat, rotenone, and related compounds) have established links to Parkinson's pathology in laboratory and observational research.
2. Groundwater contamination. Pesticides and fertilizers applied to golf courses can leach into the water table over time. This pathway operates independently of wind direction and can affect properties that would otherwise appear to be "upwind."
§ II · Why this matters specifically in Nashville
Davidson County has an unusually high concentration of golf courses relative to its land area. Within a 10-mile radius of downtown Nashville, there are more than a dozen courses — public and private, historic clubs and modern municipal layouts. Several of Nashville's most desirable neighborhoods sit within or very near the 1-mile risk zone identified by the JAMA research.
These are not fringe neighborhoods. These are some of the most sought-after addresses in the entire Nashville metro — with median home prices ranging from $800,000 to well over $3 million. The buyers in these markets are making some of the largest financial decisions of their lives, and most of them are doing so without ever encountering this research.
Many addresses in Belle Meade, Forest Hills, Hillwood Estates, and Sylvan Park fall within the 1-mile proximity zone identified in the JAMA research. Most buyers in these neighborhoods have never heard of this study.
§ III · Does this mean you shouldn't buy near a golf course?
No. And it's important to be clear about what the research does and doesn't say.
The JAMA study establishes a statistical association between golf course proximity and Parkinson's disease risk. It does not establish that any individual will develop Parkinson's disease as a result of living near a specific course. Epidemiology speaks in populations and probabilities, not in individual fates.
What the research does establish is that proximity is a meaningful variable — one that deserves to be part of an informed homebuying decision, alongside schools, flood zones, commute times, and everything else buyers evaluate.
There are also factors that meaningfully moderate the risk at a specific address. Wind direction is one of them. A home that sits downwind of a golf course — meaning the prevailing winds blow from the home toward the course, not vice versa — is exposed to less airborne pesticide drift than a home of equal distance sitting upwind.
Groundwater exposure, however, is not affected by wind. The JAMA research suggests that exposure pathways may operate at distances beyond what intuition would predict — which is why the 1-mile proximity band, not just the immediately adjacent property line, is the relevant zone.
§ IV · Public versus private courses
The JAMA study did not distinguish between public and private courses in its risk findings. Both types use pesticides, both maintain large turf areas, and both present similar exposure pathways.
However, public municipal courses in Nashville (Percy Warner, Shelby, Ted Rhodes, Harpeth Hills, McCabe, Two Rivers, VinnyLinks) are operated by Metro Nashville Parks and Recreation and subject to different procurement and application standards than private clubs. Whether this translates to materially different exposure profiles is not established by the JAMA research.
What is established: both course types are within the scope of findings identified by the Krzyzanowski et al. research. Parcelscope tracks both private courses via OpenStreetMap and all seven Metro Nashville public courses via Metro Nashville Parks data — distance, direction, and wind context for each.
§ V · Two golf courses within one mile
One scenario worth flagging is addresses in the Belle Meade corridor that sit within one mile of two golf courses simultaneously — Belle Meade Country Club to the northeast and Percy Warner Golf Course to the northwest.
This two-course finding is not common nationally, but it's relatively common in Belle Meade specifically — a function of the neighborhood's geography and the clustering of Nashville's historic private clubs. For addresses where two courses fall within the 1-mile risk band, the cumulative exposure profile is meaningfully different than for a single-course finding. This is the kind of neighborhood-specific context that doesn't show up in any aggregated rating system.
§ VI · What Parcelscope does with this
Every Parcelscope report for a Davidson County address includes:
- Distance and direction to all golf courses within three miles — both private (via OpenStreetMap) and public (via Metro Nashville Parks data).
- Wind context — local prevailing wind direction is factored in when assessing whether nearby courses sit upwind of the subject property.
- A calibrated golf course proximity score — based on the JAMA findings, weighted within our overall thirteen-category environmental scoring engine alongside UST releases, dry cleaner contamination, Superfund sites, and other data layers.
- A plain-English explanation of what the finding means, what the research says, and what (if anything) to do about it.
We don't tell buyers not to purchase homes near golf courses. We tell them what's there so they can decide for themselves — with full information, rather than without it.
§ VII · The bottom line
The JAMA 2025 golf course study is peer-reviewed, statistically significant, and clinically meaningful. It's also almost entirely unknown to Nashville homebuyers, most of whom are making multi-million-dollar decisions in neighborhoods where the JAMA findings directly apply.
That information gap is exactly why Parcelscope exists.
You checked the schools. You checked the flood zone. You checked the commute. Before you sign, check the environmental records — including what's on those perfectly manicured fairways next door.
Krzyzanowski B, Mullan AF, Dorsey ER, et al. Proximity to Golf Courses and Risk of Parkinson Disease. JAMA Network Open. 2025;8(5):e259198. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2025.9198