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The right stuff
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Editor’s note: Inside Your Environment periodically will present information being featured or archived on the Environmental Institute for Golf Web site. For more about this month’s topic, visit www.eifg.org.
President Theodore Roosevelt, who was well known for his love of the outdoors, has been credited for saying, “Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.”
“Working hard at work worth doing” is a great depiction of superintendents, especially when you consider their passion and dedication to the game of golf and the environment. Two great examples of this adage are the maintenance teams at Pinehurst Resort in North Carolina and Florida’s Old Collier Golf Club.
At Pinehurst, Bob Farren Jr., CGCS, the resort’s grounds and golf course manager, and his staff have helped provide habitat for the red-cockaded woodpecker while maintaining the prestigious golf course. The species now has the chance to survive where it may well not have. Recently, Pinehurst received recognition for participating in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Safe Harbor Program and earlier this year was awarded GCSAA’s President’s Award for Environmental Leadership.
The Safe Harbor Program provides opportunities for wildlife habitat on private lands, including golf courses, and incorporates some regulatory relief and recognition for those efforts. Like Farren and the staff at Pinehurst, anyone working on wildlife habitat, promoting environmental protection or delivering environmental education is engaged in work worth doing — their work will make a difference for future generations.
However, for some, environmental stewardship may seem like an unattainable or lofty achievement because of limited resources. In those cases, President Roosevelt offered other advice that still applies today — “Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.”
Tim Hiers, CGCS at Old Collier Golf Club in Naples, Fla., has set an example by taking the extra efforts to set up educational tours at the club.
Hiers and his staff annually host about 210 students and adults from a local elementary school’s fifth grade classes. “The goal of the tour is for kids to have fun, learn about positive and productive measures to enhance the environment, augment the biological and science concepts of the classroom, and to demonstrate that golf courses can be very beneficial for wildlife, plants, people and the environment in general,” Hiers says.
Children’s tours are only the first part of this program. Hiers and his crew continue the tours by providing some adult environmental education to government representatives.
Within his case study — “On Course with Environmental Education: Tours Tailor Made for EPA Officials and Kids Send Powerful Messages” — Hiers writes, “... At least six superintendents from the local chapter assist with the tour and actually intersperse with the officials while on tour and during the cook-out. The superintendent is able to answer routine questions as the cart train makes its way around the course. Based on the ratings from the tour last year, the program is paying positive dividends. Most of the respondents rated the tour at 9 out of a possible 10.”
Hard work for the game while caring for the environment comes naturally for many superintendents. Environmental efforts do not have to be difficult; many work with what they have, where they are, and strive to make a difference.
Audubon International is encouraging golf courses to take part in its Audubon Green Golfer Challenge, in which golf courses and golfers pledge to take steps to become environmental stewards while playing golf. Audubon International will collect and count pledges made by participating golf courses throughout the year and award courses with the most golfers signed up by Nov. 15. Winners will be announced at the end of the year, the group says. For more information, visit www.GolfandEnvironment.org. The Trustees of Golf Environment Europe recently announced a new chairman and two new trustees. Bjorn Nordberg will take over the position of chairman from outgoing Tom Garvey, who had led the group since 1999. The group also appointed Manuel Agrellos (past president of the PGAs of Europe) and Angel Gallardo (vice president of the European Tour Executive Board) to serve as trustees. |
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