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Presented in partnership with BASF
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Taking the long road
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The idea of municipal golf first caught the fancy of the Mendocino Coast Recreation and Park District back in 1992. With a 600-acre piece of Northern California real estate almost ideally suited for a project like this, the idea seemed like a natural.
This spring — after 14 years, three Environmental Impact Reports and dozens of routing plans — that “natural” project will finally become a reality. Working with Jacobsen Hardy Golf Course Design, the MCRPD has received all the necessary permitting and will break ground this spring amid (but never impacting) stands of rare pygmy cypress.
Jacobsen Hardy is a relative newcomer here: the Houston-based firm has been involved with the project only since 1996. “Each design we undertake is driven by its environment. It’s the factor that affects the style of course we design, the time it takes to gain permitting, the construction schedule — everything,” says Peter Jacobsen, the PGA Tour veteran who partners with Jim Hardy in Jacobsen Hardy. “The Mendocino project has taken a very long time, but when you work with the environment, that’s just the way it is.”
When a project has done three separate EIRs, there are clearly multiple environmental issues in play. One EIR was withdrawn because it lacked enough public input, but another failed because subsequent botanical surveys found unique properties that couldn’t be touched, including the pygmy cypress, which only grow in Mendocino’s marine terrace environment.
“Our main priorities were preservation and steering very clear of the pygmy forest,” says Rex VanHoose, JH senior vice president/managing architect. “We created a buffer zone of 100 feet. Nothing is allowed in there. We also paid special attention to surface drainage to make sure that no irrigation runoff from the course ever migrates to the pygmy forest. If any kind of fertilizer should get in there and other stuff grows up, it’s not a pygmy forest anymore. The soil condition has to be preserved.”
The third and final EIR was ultimately certified Feb. 10, 2006 — 18 months later than expected because JH and the MCRPD continued with their own studies that identified new wetlands, unmapped streams and sensitive plant populations. “Of course, we had to design new holes around all these things,” says Jim Hurst, a volunteer on this project for 14 years who’s now regional park and golf course project coordinator.
“The original routing took five designs and multiple site visits. The current design took three complete reroutings before Jim [Hardy] was satisfied. When we did sight-line clearing for all 18 holes last winter, to see whether there were wetland problems, Jacobsen Hardy decided to make changes on 11 holes. But they did that quickly and efficiently — and they made it all work within the guidelines of our timber harvest permit.
“There are few golf courses that have gone this far to protect and restore a very special environment which is unique to the world. You can’t create a pygmy forest. To design a regional park and golf course in a 600-acre watershed here, and preserve 180 acres in conservation easements, and leave 360 acres undeveloped — that’s really something.”
The Everglades GCSA recently donated $5,000 to the Environmental Institute for Golf, attaining Platinum Tee Club status for the eighth consecutive year. The chapter also is recognized at the Executive Club level in the Cumulative Giving Program, having contributed between $25,000 and $49,999 since 1987. As GCSAA’s philanthropic arm, The Institute combines the efforts of the golf community and the environmental community to deliver services of research, education and outreach that communicate the best management practices of environmental stewardship on the golf course. GCSAA’s Education Conference offers a look at another type of natural environment that can benefit your golf course. “Native Wildflower Meadows: Let’s Get Real” is a half-day seminar being presented Feb. 22 featuring several case studies designed to give you the techniques you’ll need to work near this kind of sensitive plant material. Audubon International works with superintendents to help them make the most of the unique features of the environment where the golf course was developed. Learn how to identify the natural assets and constraints of your course by signing up for “Wildlife Management & Habitat Conservation,” a full-day seminar offered Feb. 21 at GCSAA’s Education Conference in Anaheim |
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