In this blog post we examine the advantages and benefits of bringing more sustainable practices to the routine maintenance of golf courses,the best practices owners can implement today, and the future of golf course maintenance.
As global environmental consciousness expands, we also see a growing number of golf course owners and operators recognizing the ecological — and cost — benefits of having more sustainable courses.
Truth be told: many of the current ways of maintaining putting greens are not sustainable and can pose long-term problems for wildlife, plants — and people!
But, while we still have quite a ways to go in the United States, many golf courses are now increasingly using green management practices. Let us cover some of them below.
What is Golf Course Sustainability?
Golf course sustainability is a term used to describe the practice of implementing environmentally-friendly golf course maintenance protocols.
Traditional golf course maintenance is far from environmentally sustainable — from excessive application of chemical fertilizers to heavy water usage. On top of that, the long-term financial costs are incredible!
The goal of golf course sustainability is to maintain a balance between improving course quality for golfers while establishing environmentally sound conservation methods.
In other words: establishing the ideal dry and dense greens that avid players love while reducing the number of chemicals used to minimize hazardous waste and runoff.
Let’s take a look at how traditional golf courses affect the environment.
What Problems Do Traditional Golf Courses Pose?
Did you know that the average golf course uses 312,000 gallons of water each day?
While this water is used for necessary irrigation, water on the course can mix with pesticides and fertilizers in the grass, harming nearby plants and wildlife. To make matters worse, golf courses often contain more than just a light coat of chemicals. They tend to apply up to 50,000 pounds of pesticides in one year, which can be four to seven times more than what is typically used in agriculture!
And these problems are exacerbated when we factor in stormwater runoff and the lack of systems on a golf course to prevent it.
The last thing we want is pollution to spread to our wildlife and crops because we are prioritizing beautiful golf courses over the health and future of the natural environment.
However, no longer does it have to be a choice of one or the other.
Establishing more sustainable golf courses can maintain the look and feel of a beautiful golf course without long-term ecological repercussions.
As it turns out, owners and superintendents of golf courses are discovering that they can fairly easily and affordably cut maintenance costs by implementing more environmentally sound practices.
Why is Golf Course Sustainability Important?
Golf course sustainability has numerous benefits, perhaps even more than we realized in the past. So let’s explore what makes it beneficial to operators and players, the environment, and even the neighboring communities.
- Healthier environment: Reducing chemicals and water usage promotes a healthier ecosystem.
- Cost savings: Operators can cut costs on pesticides, water, and electricity by using alternative means of golf course maintenance. Even the alternative equipment needed for more sustainable maintenance can result in long-term cost savings.
- Conserved resources: Daily water usage can be reduced along with the amount of energy needed to power machinery to maintain the course.
How Can Golf Courses Be Made More
1. Using Recycled Water
Water recycling is reusing water from different sources for beneficial purposes.
In this instance, we are talking about using recycled water to water grass on the golf course and other course needs.
Using recycled water is more sustainable because new water resources are conserved by leveraging already used ones. Using recycled water can save energy and reduce the costs associated with wastewater management.
Recycled water in this context typically can be sourced from stormwater runoff and sewage facilities. Another factor to consider is that most golf courses are in cities where recycled water is already being produced by waste municipalities. As a result, the costs of transporting this water are less — yet another environmental benefit to add to the list.
2. Using Energy-Efficient Equipment
Another sustainable approach for green golf course maintenance is the choice of the equipment used daily.
Some examples of energy-efficient equipment can include:
- Hybrid and fully electric mowers
- Solar panels providing the electricity that powers the equipment
- Geothermal heating and cooling systems for indoor facilities
Energy-efficient equipment may seem like a hefty initial investment on average. But in the long run, it can quickly pay for itself by cutting operational costs. Plus, it benefits the environment!
3. Reducing Water Usage
The typical golf course uses thousands of gallons of water daily, so consciously cutting back is a simple but viable sustainable practice.
This would require taking an inventory of where most of the water usage goes and where it can be cut back.
4. Opting for Organic Pesticides and Pest Management Alternatives
Pesticides help keep a golf course free of unwanted visitors and benefit weed management. However, their effect on the environment can be averse considering the danger of runoff into local streams and waterways where animals and plants can be compromised.
Here’s a solution:
We can elect to use organic pesticides, which contain natural pest-avoidant properties found in nature — a good example would be microbial pesticides.
We can also use pheromone traps, which can attract unwanted pests away from the putting greens.
5. Having Vegetated Buffers
Vegetated buffers are areas that prevent chemically-contaminated water from running off and polluting nearby streams.
Landscape design can be useful here, making the buffer itself all-natural. Creating an effective buffer can be as cost-effective, elegant, and ingenious as planting taller grasses at the borders to absorb that water — and they can still be home to insects and other wildlife.
6. Reducing Mowed Area
Areas like buffer zones on a golf course can not only help shield against runoff, they can also be homes for wildlife. Having more of these creates or preserves natural habitat for wildlife and vegetation to grow, contributing to natural environmental cycles like the carbon and nitrogen cycle.
Landscape architecture is a hallmark of beautiful golf courses around the world. Most golfers are nature lovers, who enjoy spending long days outside. Having more plants and vegetation is a clear asset in attracting golfers who like the look and feel of a beautiful course.
7. Using Sustainable Grasses
Different varieties of grasses require different amounts of water and provide different experiences for golfers.
And in many cases, the golfing experience can come down to how tall the grass gets.
Today golf course managers can use grass that requires much less water and are drought-tolerant in the warm seasons.
Here are three grass types that are proven to be environmental-friendly:
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Bermuda: resistant to heat and requires less water for growth
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Fescue: requires less mowing, fertilizers, and water since it grows slowly
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Turf grass: no growing time means we don’t need to mow it consistently or use fertilizers and water
8. Using Hand Watering
Hand watering can be a more sustainable, and even a more efficient, way of maintaining putting greens.
The truth is that some areas of a golf course (such as heavily frequented areas) require more water than others.
Irrigation systems may bring labor efficiency but, with hand watering, we can choose exactly where our water is allocated. We also reduce the chances of overwatering certain areas and underwatering others.
Yet, for some golf courses, having dedicated workers just for watering can get costly; so one solution can be a hybrid approach, one that uses a mix of irrigation system watering and hand watering.
Balancing these two can help both reduce water usage and make necessary water use more efficient — without reducing the bottom line.
What Does the Future of Golf Courses Look Like?
As new golf courses get built across the United States, more environmentally conscious maintenance practices are going to be part of the design. Golf superintendents and owners are becoming more aware of their footprint, and so are golfers themselves.
So what does the future look like?
In the future, American greenskeepers will use more sustainable approaches to maintain the fairways and fertilize the grounds.
Water management practices will see an improvement. Also, energy-efficient equipment will be more popular.
As more energy-efficient equipment gets adopted, their prices may drop, allowing for even more adoption.
In the future, superintendents will likely opt for more environmentally friendly fertilizers, too. There’s also excellent potential for newer technologies that contribute to healthy putting greens that are already attracting great interest and coming into wider use.
Here at a a.c.e. Nature, we are committed to a greener earth. We encourage our own to think and act sustainably in our daily lives.
We want to connect with like-minded people who also love the outdoors; and we want to provide high-quality products to people who want to actively work towards natural preservation.
As avid golfers ourselves, we offer a line of eco-friendly apparel on our website. Check out our growing catalog here.