Golf Courses and Sustainability

Golf Ghost

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EAL visits Rivermount Golf Club in Georgia to talk about course sustainability. As someone who works in sustainable development and planning, it's amazing to see this trend continue and media sources picking up on it. Hopefully it's something we see continue moving forward because it benefits so many from the club with costs to the natural habitat of local species of grasses and animals.

 
I’ll have to watch this tonight!
 
Planned on watching this! Love the thoughts and topics EAL consistently brings attention to
 
Great video!
 
Good stuff. Always good to see proper use of chemicals with natural grasses. Reduce cost. Seems simple....but.
 
Thanks for the link. Looks like a good topic and looking forward to watching it
 
Great to see people paying attention to this!
 
No doubt this is the future of turf management. Let’s hope more courses adopt a sustainable methodology and more golfers learn to appreciate it.
 
I got into a Twitter argument with some douchebag Super back east that was trying to say that growing up native grasses and limiting irrigated areas doesn't save money because you still have to spray. I told him he either had no clue what he was doing or he'd never actually tried the practice.

As a former Assistant Superintendent I worked at a very high end private course that practiced what the course in the OP practices. Let Native grasses grow in areas that are (for the most part) out of play. Use more organic fertilizing practices (worm casing, molasses heavy mixtures, etc.) to minimize chemical use and leaching. Less short term (high nitogen) fertilization practices for quick "pop" and more slow release products in turf to promote a turf that is less dependent on the "crack" addict turf. Soak and cycle practices that promote a root system that actually seek moisture further down in the soil instead of being dependent on everyday watering at the top of the profile to survive. There are a lot of things superintendents can do to make their entire operation more eco-friendly.

Growing native grass around water sources is huge for a plethora of reasons (a lot explained in the OPs video). Turf grass, in general, is huge for soil stability (it's reason you see grass growing up across the country along our roads and highways. The reason has almost ZERO to do with aesthetics. It's to keep our roads from washing out).

Our course was perpetually in contact, compliance, and certification with the Audubon Society for maintaining the integrity ofnatural habitat for water fowl. We built eagle nests and duck habitats.

The first thing that has to go it if the sport of golf is to survive in such an eco-concious world is the idea of wall to wall green grass. Get the f***over it. Quickly. Otherwise the ecos win out and golf will truly only be available to the rich. No bones about it.
 
@robrandalgz the biggest headache at our course has been restoring the native grass. Unfortunately it went untouched for years and the weeds and non-native junk started taking over. Now they burn and spray every year and after 4 years it’s finally starting to look good again. I am glad that we have a ton of native grass and wetlands.
 
@robrandalgz the biggest headache at our course has been restoring the native grass. Unfortunately it went untouched for years and the weeds and non-native junk started taking over. Now they burn and spray every year and after 4 years it’s finally starting to look good again. I am glad that we have a ton of native grass and wetlands.
It's certainly not a quick fix and areas that have been neglected are actually tougher to convert than turf that was previously manicured. The weeds take on a life of their own at that point. One thing that helped us even after the conversion was to purchase weed resistant wildflower seed in those areas. It's beneficial for two reasons. The first, obviously being, the weed resistance. The second was aesthetics. Now, weed resistant doesn't mean that you'll never get weeds in those areas. It just means that you've got an ally in the soil profile. The other thing os that you can't just throw any wildlfower seed out there. It's tough to find mixes that are actually verified as a high percentage weed free mix. Often times, wildflower mixes will actually make your weed problem worse because they are mixed is with......you guessed it. Weeds.

I wouldn't pretend to know what issues that your course is dealing with and anyone that would offer advice without making a site survey and taking soil profiles that would tell you that he could is a hack and a joke. As I said before, we were in contact with the Audubon Society quite a bit and IIRC they also had some ideas about turf practices that were not only more eco friendly but cost effective, also.

The turf industry will never be able to completely divorce itself from fertilization or pesticide practices but the industry, as a whole can do a lot better. Cut some of these budgets a little bit and you'd be surprised how creative these guys can be when they need to. Now, don't get me wrong, Maintenance is the last place I would ever take the money of a golf course from. I'm a turf guy. I would just assume get rid of the Pro shop operation (the part of every golf course that perpetually loses money) or food services before I skimped on turf grass management but, again, The industry as a whole could do a lot better.

The first step is to educate the golfing public that they aren't paying Augusta premiums and they won't be playing Augusta conditions. There's Zero need for me, as a superintendent, to allocate $30,000 annually to make areas (that 90 percent of golf balls will never see) look like a postcard or your phony assed Instagram background. Let's allocate the resources where they matter.
 
Our super is a scientist because he has to be. He does amazing work with his budget and puts down what is needed based on soil tests.
 
Our super is a scientist because he has to be. He does amazing work with his budget and puts down what is needed based on soil tests.
The best ones are, because they have to be. The worst Supers are the ones with outrageous budgets who get lazy and used to spending money. Give me a guy that's run a course on a shoestring budget over someone that's spent their careers at high end clubs any day of the week. Because when the sh!t hits the fan, the guy that can improvise will lead the way while the country club guy is learning the ropes on how to survive.

Soil testing is huge. Without it you're throwing resources at problems that you don't even know you have. Some guys get in a rut of just doing the same practices every year because "that's what we've always done". It's lazy and expensive in the long run. I have no doubt that your guy is all over it. Sounds like your course is about to get a bit of capital influx here, soon. I hope the powers that be are smart enough to keep your super on their hip while they conceptualize the new features and renovations.
 
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