Tag: water conservation

Georgia golf courses (even those not named Augusta National) are enhancing wildlife habitats

“Our goal is to help people, especially non-golfers, to see the golf course as more than just a golf course.”

In spring of 2023, the University of Georgia Golf Course was designated as an Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary through the Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary Program for Golf Courses. Extra care is taken into account for upkeep in an effort to run in an environmentally friendly way.

“It takes a lot to maintain golf courses,” said Scott Griffith, associate director of agronomy at the University of Georgia golf course. “And we have to maintain them on a daily basis. There are a lot of misconceptions regarding fertilizers. If the grass is growing too fast, that creates more work for us. It creates a negative situation not only on our staff and our customers but also our budgets. Slow-release fertilizers are used judiciously.”

The Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary Program for golf is a certification program that helps golf courses protect the environment. The goal is to help enhance wildlife habitats and minimize potentially harmful impacts of golf course operations. The program serves an important environmental role worldwide.

“I’ve always been environmentally conscious,” said Griffith. “A lot of the things that were listed in this program we were already doing. For me, it was important, because it represents UGA. Our motto is, ‘Elevate the G’. Anything we can do to elevate the University of Georgia and this is one way for us to do that.”

Frank LaVandera, director of environmental programs for golf with Audubon International, said the organization was founded in 1987 with a clear goal in mind.

“Initially, we received money from the United States Golf Association,” said LaVandera. “At that time the USGA wanted to see if we could change the perspective about golf courses. For many years golf courses may have had a negative connotation. Some people felt that golf courses used a lot of chemicals, water and were bad for the environment.”

LaVandera said the certification process to be designated as an Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary through the Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary Program for Golf Courses has six components.

The components are as follows:

  • Site Assessment/Environmental Planning
  • Wildlife and Habitat Management
  • Chemical Use Reduction and Safety
  • Water Conservation
  • Water Quality Management
  • Outreach and Education

“As the course goes through the environmental plan, we ask questions about water conservation, things they’re doing for chemical reduction,” said LaVandera. “At the end of the environmental plan, the course identifies the things that need to be completed in each of those categories. Once all the categories are approved, we actually come to the course and we do what’s called the certification site visit.”

‘More than just a golf course’

“Our goal is to help people, especially non-golfers, to see the golf course as more than just a golf course. In highly suburbanized and urban areas, golf courses act as a great natural filtration for stormwater that comes onto the course from other areas. A golf course can provide habitat for wildlife.

“A golf course can provide a cooling effect in the summertime. Two blocks away from the golf course is 95 degrees but actually on the golf course because of that turf, it might be six or seven degrees cooler. A course that doesn’t stay open all year can be available for people out walking and those sorts of things.”

LaVandera said more golf courses are moving to a more sustainable way of operating.

“Even if a golf course isn’t in our program, generally, the vast majority of golf courses operate in what I would consider to be a sustainable manner,” he said. “Just about every golf course has a best management plan, which, as the name implies, allows us to document and implement best management practices as it relates to managing the golf course. It also has an environmental component to it.”

This reporting content is supported by a partnership with several funders and Journalism Funding Funding Partners.

Erica Van Buren is the climate change reporter for The Augusta Chronicle, part of the USA TODAY Network. Connect with her at EVanBuren@gannett.com or on X: @EricaVanBuren32.

This Colorado muni has been losing millions because of a leaky water system, and now it’ll cost millions to fix it

The sprinkler system would also need a new pump station, which can monitor water use.

The Desert Hawk Golf Course in Pueblo West is losing millions of gallons of water due to leaks from its 60-year-old sprinkler system. It will cost an estimated $3.5 million to replace it.

During a March 20 meeting of the Desert Hawk Management Board, the board voted unanimously to outline the scope of work and put out a request for bids to obtain an engineer’s proposal and design to replace the sprinkler system. The report is expected to cost about $60,000.

Representatives of CPS Distributors, which offers irrigation supplies, told the board that 40 years is the normal life expectancy for a sprinkler system. Desert Hawk’s 60-year-old system features an asbestos mainline which other golf courses are moving away from due to inefficiency and safety concerns for workers.

The sprinkler system would also need a new pump station, which can monitor water use and allow for shut downs to lines that are leaking.

Golfweek’s Best: Top public and private courses in Colorado

Desert Hawk was purchased in 2000 by Pueblo County and the Pueblo West Metro District with $7.2 million in certificates of participation as part of an intergovernmental agreement designed to save the failing golf course, which was previously operated by a string of private owners.

Chieftain reporter Tracy Harmon covers business news for the. She can be reached by email at tharmon@chieftain.com or via X, formerly Twitter, at twitter.com/tracywumps. Support local news, subscribe to The Pueblo Chieftain at subscribe.chieftain.com.

Why the USGA committing $30 million to water conservation is important for golf’s future

Mike Whan: “We write an incredible white paper, we send that out and we think ‘job well done.'”

Water is an integral part of everyday life. It’s also vital to golf.

That’s why the United States Golf Association says it’s investing $30 million in its effort to drive forward a more sustainable game. Last month, the USGA announced a multi-year, multi-million-dollar investment toward reducing golf’s use of water.

Efforts to reduce water usage are nothing new in the game, but it’s more vital now than ever.

“There’s only going to be more competition for our water resources as population increases,” said Cole Thompson, the USGA’s Director of Turfgrass and Environmental Research. “That’s really what this initiative is, is the USGA committing to hopefully leading the industry toward water resiliency.”

The USGA’s $30 million commitment over the next 15 years will advance underutilized strategies and technologies that golf courses can use to economically reduce their use of water, a vital and increasingly regulated natural resource with near- and long-term cost and availability concerns. The work will focus on irrigation optimization, advanced conservation innovation and water sourcing and storage.

“The long-term economic and environmental sustainability of green-grass golf courses – where more than 25 million people enjoy the game and millions more are employed – will be challenged in certain regions if the game doesn’t advance this critical work now,” Mike Whan, CEO of the USGA, said in a release. “We are enthused and impressed by the reductions golf course superintendents have pursued over the past decade, and even more optimistic about the future. The USGA is ready to not only contribute our voice, but also our resources and expertise, to help our golf course partners and ensure golf’s future.”

Some highlights of the commitment include:

  • Launching and continuously update a water resilience playbook for the game of golf
  • Demonstrate underutilized and emerging, research-based practices
  • Understand and break down barriers to adoption of proven strategies (including financial barriers)
  • Continue to support water resilience research and turfgrass breeding programs

The work toward greater water resilience propels many of the current and emerging practices employed throughout golf, which have contributed to a 29 percent reduction in golf’s use of water from 2005-20. The USGA’s initiative will build on that benchmark, with the goal of more widespread adoption nationwide.

“The problem of water is not going away,” Thompson said. “You’ve got to think about what your water sources are and if they’re being used efficiently, so you know if you can diversify your water supply.”

One of the best examples of water conservation is at Pasatiempo Golf Club in California, which in September of 2017 started using a $9 million irrigation setup, consisting of a 500,000-gallon subterranean water storage tank, a water treatment facility and a pump station.

The wastewater treatment site supplied between 60 percent and 70 percent of Pasatiempo’s irrigation needs annually, superintendent Justin Mandon said. In addition, Mandon said Pasatiempo also used potable water and well water, though its use of potable water has dropped nearly 80 percent since opening the wastewater treatment site.

“I’m not aware of other courses anywhere that use three different sources of water,” Mandon said.

Mandon has worked with the USGA and has spoke at water summits to discuss Pasatiempo’s changes and how other courses can do their part.

“Even if you think you’re in an area where you have very secure water, you really need to start thinking about where does your water actually come from, who controls that,” Mandon said. “Start really started having those conversations about where this commodity is going to start to go because it’s going to become more and more limited, regardless of where you are in the United States.”

The USGA is partnering with courses on numerous field projects designed to show where and when the water conservation potential of a strategy outweighs the investment and disruption required for implementation. Research supports that drought-tolerant grasses use about 20 percent less water than commonly used varieties, depending on location and grassing scheme, and installing them typically pays off in five to 10 years.

With a goal of identifying early adopters, the USGA will continue to collaborate in a series of water summits in several states along with its Allied Golf Associations, as it seeks to draw the best talent and innovations toward the program’s goals.

The organization will also work together with golf courses on sharing best practices and innovations that could be more widely adopted to advance program goals.

“If you employ the right strategies in your region, this can help get to a reasonable amount of water to provide a golf course,” Thompson said.

Whan believes the USGA (and other governing bodies) have long had good intentions when it comes to water conservation, but simply tried to hand research down to golf courses already facing financial battles.

With the new initiatives, the CEO believes the pathway to success becomes more practical.

“What I said to the board when I got there is we’ve been really good at research right up until the white paper. We go spend a bunch of money on research, we write an incredible white paper, we send that out and we think ‘job well done.’ We’ve got to move from white paper to actually putting product in the dirt,” Whan said. “So our 15-30-45 initiative which is 15 years, $30 million to reduce water on a golf course by 45 percent, you can’t just show somebody on a pamphlet how to do that.

“Like, if somebody can’t afford the $5 million dollar drip irrigation change, we’re going to have to put up the five and let them pay us back a million a year over five years. We’ve got to create a process.”

For example, Golfweek learned that in the anchor agreement the USGA signed with Pebble Beach  — which includes hosting four U.S. Women’s Opens — that the oldest continuous working golf course west of the Mississippi will be a testing ground of sorts. Officials will see what they can learn from Del Monte Golf Course, which sits right near downtown Monterey.

“They’re kind of letting us experiment at Del Monte and actually try different things,” Whan said. “We’ve got a similar agreement in the South, we’re taking research and we’re actually putting it in the ground so that we can show somebody, ‘hey, at this place we reduced water by 53 percent. Let us tell you how, and do you want to try to do that here at your own course?’

“I think in the past we stopped at the white-paper stage, like in a 2-by-2 plot of land at UC Riverside we showed that this strain of grass needs 30 percent less water. But that doesn’t help your typical superintendent.

“We’re going to take it to the next level.”

Golfweek’s Tim Schmitt contributed to this report.

[mm-video type=playlist id=01es6rjnsp3c84zkm6 player_id=01evcfxp4q8949fs1e image=]