A Challenge to USGA President Jim Hyler: Brown the US Open
by Ryan Ballengee on Feb 11, 2010 11:00 AM EST
in Playing Golf
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PrintA couple of articles and blog posts caught my eye yesterday that were related to the small (but growing) segment of golfers, course designers, and officials in the game that are ardently advocating for more environmentally sustainable golf course maintenance practices.
The mantra is simple: brown is beautiful.
Jim Hyler, the newly minted USGA President, made reference to the movement in his first address - is that the right word? - as man in charge. Ron Sirak wrote a piece on the speech, and here are some excerpted lines:
"Many of the standards by which we construct and maintain our courses have become, quite simply, unsustainable."
"I believe that our definition of playability should include concepts of firm, fast, and yes, even brown, and allow the running game to flourish."
"We need to understand how brown can become the new green."
In other words, not only is the current mode of golf course maintenance unsustainable from an environmental standpoint, but for many clubs, also as it relates to the bottom line.
Geoff Shackelford makes a great point, though, at his blog. The USGA and superintendents are not going to be able to change golf single-handed. Golfers have to not only come to accept, but to love the look of a brown, firm, and fast course - much more akin to what Americans usually see once per year, on TV at the Open Championship.
Tom Dunne took the point to the next level by creating an album of golf course photography that he has collected or readers have sent it that show the beauty of a less-than-green golf course.
(I highly encourage you to take a look at the album. The photography is stunning. But, after you do that, come back here are tell me if you're ok with playing a golf course that isn't perfectly manicured and a shining lawn of green. )
This is a good and important discussion in our game and it appears that it is going to be a priority of Jim Hyler in his term as USGA President. Here's my challenge to the USGA, though. If it really means business about going green - well, brown - then it should make every effort to present the 2011 US Open at Congressional as carbon neutral and maintained using environmentally sustainable practices.
Congressional is a course that has much of its reputation because of its stunning green hue. Were the USGA able to turn the tint knob on the course for a week, get the word out to golfers watching the championship, and rip off the Band-Aid on how people expect to see golf courses on TV, then perhaps the sport can take a giant leap forward.
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What in the WORLD is this guy talking about ? Has he seen a graph of seasons over top of a calendar ? Does he not know that the US Open is played in July and that grass is GREEN in the USA that time of year unless it isn’t properly watered ?
The USGA has been responsible for killing the greens at a number of venues under the excuse of “firm and fast” – now he wants to do the same thing to the fairways ? It’s one thing for a course to be a little brown in the summer when there is a drought, but not under normal circumstances. Grass is supposed to be green in the spring, summer, and most of the fall even without a lot of fertilizers.
This is nuts.
"this ball will fit in that fairway"
You think that's nuts, Court?
Joe Biden’s proposing that the Congressional should be neither green nor brown grass, but an even mix of blue and red.
Does he not know that the US Open is played in July and that grass is GREEN in the USA that time of year unless it isn’t properly watered ?
Actually, the final round of the US Open is on Father’s Day, which is in June…very shortly (by days) after spring becomes summer.
by Charles Boyer on Feb 11, 2010 12:59 PM EST up reply actions
TX,
he just wants that to go with his yellow balls…STUB
CG,
when I was a kid, we played golf courses that were a bit on the brownish side…fairways and greens both…There were no sophisticated watering systems,.. I remember the course I learned to play on…it was next to a river flowing into a large lake…when they did put in a sprinkler system, it was only at the greens…it consisted of a sump pump sucking water out of the lake…we learned to play the amount of run of a shot pretty well…I think that is what was meant, that it wasn’t just going to be hit it high and stick it on the greens….When they talk of sustainable, the problem is, many “country clubs” were built to sell housing development….now, they can’t charge that 80,000 fee to join anymore…costs of everything have gone up, fertilizer, equipment, salaries, etc…the memberships are narrowing down as people tighten the belts…I know 1 family used to eat dinner at the club every night….now, it’s maybe once every 3-4 weeks, so revenue is down across the board…What he’s really advocating, is to sustain the membership of clubs, or they’ll be like tour events and drop by the wayside…STUB
From the article…
“In other words, not only is the current mode of golf course maintenance unsustainable from an environmental standpoint, but for many clubs, also as it relates to the bottom line.”
…now I can certainly agree that it is more expensive to water the golf course, but how is it environmentally unsustainable?
nibs – haven’t you heard ? according to the environmentalist whackos of the world – as soon as we use a drop of water and it goes down the drain, it is forever gone from the system – unusable to the world – it just disappears. (never mind that the earth is its own filtration system and humans treat waste water before putting it back into circulation)
"this ball will fit in that fairway"
YES, I have heard….especially the environmental whacko part!!!! Also of note is the fact that green grass pulls CO2 out of the environment and puts out O2.
As it turns out, by watering golf courses covered in fertilizer, that not only pollutes the water that could be used for drinking, but also runs off into streams, creating algae blooms, killing water life, crushing ecosystems, and making for serious environmental problems.
Find me! Email: ryan@thegolfnewsnet.com, Twitter: http://twitter.com/waggleroomryan, or Facebook: http://facebook.com/waggleroom.
by Ryan Ballengee on Feb 11, 2010 1:57 PM EST up reply actions
So you’re an environmental wacko…well, that explains why we disagree on most everything. You probably believe in anthropogenic global warming/climate change also?
Al Gore doesn't believe it, but the money he makes on it is real nice....
he’s scammed his way to 10’s of millions of $$$ or more. He should be sharing a cell with Madoff.
The Saints ARE the SUPER BOWL CHAMPS....WHO DAT!
We disagree on everything because you just like to disagree with everything without regard for facts, consistency, or intellectual honesty.
Find me! Email: ryan@thegolfnewsnet.com, Twitter: http://twitter.com/waggleroomryan, or Facebook: http://facebook.com/waggleroom.
by Ryan Ballengee on Feb 11, 2010 8:49 PM EST up reply actions
I thought the whole "brown" movement...
was about not overseeding dormant grass to make it look green… and, in some cases, using grasses that could tolerate salt water and would therefore be less green. Has the agenda changed again?
Mike Southern
www.ruthlessgolf.com
Mike, that’s part of it, but it’s really more geared toward a full suite of environmentally-friendly practices.
Find me! Email: ryan@thegolfnewsnet.com, Twitter: http://twitter.com/waggleroomryan, or Facebook: http://facebook.com/waggleroom.
by Ryan Ballengee on Feb 11, 2010 1:58 PM EST up reply actions
CG, Nibs
“environmentalist”, but I will give you one example…I have heart problems, and when the ozone level is high, I can tell it, just walking from my front door to the mail box, a distance of about 60-65 ft…This is a higher end neighborhood if you want to call it that…most lots are from 1/2 to 3/4 acre…On Thursdays and Fridays when the lawn guys are out with the mowers, I can feel the difference in the air quality…They did a study here about 2 years ago, and it was documented that the air quality suffered on those days…I don’t remember what the exact emissions were from the one stroke engines, but it was significant…My water bill reflects the cost of gold coming through the pipes, I can tell you that…I changed my sprinkler system to operate only 1 day a week…All lake levels have dropped significantly, and I’m talking feet…not inches….the water has to come from somewhere, and with the lake levels down, it means less water….STUB
you have GOLD in your pipes ? Pack up the car - we're moving next to Stub !! :-)
we have those subdivisions here in Atlanta, too. All lawn work has to be done on such and such a day. (I’ve even been to one that specified the hours that the work could be done) It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that air quality would change in the neighborhood when ALL the houses have mowers and trimmers and blowers running at the same time. This can’t surprise you. Our local weather genius makes a big announcement that air quailty is down during heavy traffic days. (thanks big guy – pantload of news that is)
unfortunately, a lot of lawn services don’t replace filters and spark plugs as often as they should, so we see that blue smoke coming from their tools – but it’s goes away when the wind blows.
We’re celebrating here in north Georgia – for the first time in almost 15 years, the lakes are full. Droughts are a pain – but there isn’t anythnig human beings can do about it. Water evaporates from lawns just as fast as it does from lakes and resevoirs. Most people did what you did – either cut down on lawn watering or cut it out completely, which is what I did.
"this ball will fit in that fairway"
Sorry,
that sould have started with “I’m no”…STUB
Most golf courses collect rainwater and use them to water their fairways and of course greens. They do not use treated municipality water for this purpose. What they are using is water that is runoff from their property, collecting it and recycling it on their own property.
I know that in the two or three dozen courses here in Raleigh, there are exactly two that use municipal water. The rest recycle their water. That said, they should do with that water as they please. It belongs to the clubs owners.
As for “carbon neutral” please don’t make me laugh. The cars driving to and from the event will certainly contribute CO2, but almost certainly will not be included. People on the grounds will breathe in air and exhale CO2, but that won’t be counted. The grass on the grounds will breathe in CO2, metabolize it and emit oxygen, but that won’t be counted either.
Fact: a 50- foot by 50 foot plot of grass metabolizes enough carbon dioxide and as a result produces enough oxygen to provide a family of four enough O2 to breathe for a day. Let’s take it further: An acre is 43,560 square feet, and roughly estimated, a typical golf course has 175 acres of grass. That means that a golf course has about 7.64 million square feet of grass, and if you do the math, again roughly estimated, a golf course produces enough oxygen for over 3,000 familes of four — or 12,222 people each and every day.
But nooooooooooooooo, golf courses are evil greenhouse gas producing entities that are spoiling the Earth.
At least that’s what nattering nabob nincompoops would want you to believe. These are the same people that prefer to build windmills (and you can insert your own Don Quixote reference here) and NOT build nuclear power plants to generate electricity. What they don’t like to admit is that windmills aren’t so good for the environment and that their uptime (actually producing power) is on the order of 23%. Nuclear emits ZERO greenhouse gases, they produce power a little over 90% uptime and they emit less radioactivity in ten years than a coal fired plant does in a single day of operation.
And I bet that’s the same sort of person that drives a Toyota Prius or another hybrid car and smugly thinks they are doing their part. That’s rubbish too. First of all, a hybrid is chock full of toxic chemicals aside from gas and oil. Secondly, the best hybrid only gets 65% of the mileage of the best petroleum-based vehicle and as such, it actually uses MORE fuel and produces MORE CO2 over its lifetime.
This are the inconvenient truths that the modern green movement doesn’t want you to know, among many others. Quite simply, they are political obstructionists who are as misleading as any politician and they are leading us to no good at all.
OMP – you’re going to have to do a better job keeping up with the decrees of the environmentalists – apparently the ONLY places where CO2 is metabolized by plant life is (a) the south american rain forest, (b) africa, and © government run national forests. :-D
"this ball will fit in that fairway"
All led by Al Gore, who last time he was here in Raleigh was driving around in a motorcade and riding in the oh-so-environmentally friendly Ford Expedition.
Ironically, his speech at the Future Leaders Forum at NC State that day was all about how wasteful SUV’s are.
Then he returned to his 10,000 square foot Greek Revival style home in Belle Meade, Tennessee. It has 20-rooms, eight-bathrooms and is fully electric. The average household in America consumes 10,656 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per year, according to the Department of Energy. In 2006, Gore devoured nearly 221,000 kWh—more than 20 times the national average.
That’s your leader, Greenies, and he’s as big a hypocrite as Jenna Jameson would be if she sang in the church choir.
by Charles Boyer on Feb 11, 2010 1:26 PM EST up reply actions
OMP, your statement that most golf courses collect rainwater and use it is patently false. Actually, only 12% of courses in the US do so.
42% of the land irrigated on golf courses is rough. That’s basically half. For the stuff we’re supposed to avoid. It makes no sense whatsoever.
Look, you can be skeptical about environmental issues, but don’t just hold a grudge and not at least hear out the argument.
Remember when Mirimichi opened? I did an article talking about the very issue of golf course maintenance and sustainability. The numbers are pretty shocking.
http://www.waggleroom.com/2009/7/29/967567/mirimichi-is-great-all-but-what
Find me! Email: ryan@thegolfnewsnet.com, Twitter: http://twitter.com/waggleroomryan, or Facebook: http://facebook.com/waggleroom.
by Ryan Ballengee on Feb 11, 2010 2:02 PM EST up reply actions
RB – I agree that golf courses need to keep up with the times and be as frugal with fertilizers as possible – and most do, if only to save a few dollars under the sign of being environmentally friendly. But NO golf course fertilizes every day, and the amount of chemicals that washes away with modern chemicals is relatively small. Modern liquid fertilizers are absorbed into the ground and the grass very quickly, so it isn’t washed off.
It takes a big rain storm to saturate the ground – so “run off”, even on a golf course, isn’t what environmentalists like to make it out to be. Most rainwater is absorbed by the top layers of the ground unless you’re getting multiple inches of rain at a time.
Stop trying to make golf courses and the people who take care of the grounds sound like they are ignorant twits who are just pouring chemicals on the ground every day just to pollute the water supply. It’s just not true. Pay a little attention to what the GCSAA says in their newsletters. They are a very solid and forward thinking group of people.
"this ball will fit in that fairway"
But, court, the same argument that you’re making in support of the GCSAA is one that you can’t make about the USGA’s efforts to study better techniques and get that knowledge out into the ether?
Again, you keep saying that “a lot” of courses are following these practices, but the stats just don’t back that claim.
I would highly suggest that you take a deeper look into the impact of runoff and how it can happen for up to 30 days after fertilizer is laid.
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by Ryan Ballengee on Feb 11, 2010 8:51 PM EST up reply actions
The numbers quoted by Audobon Society are 18% using collected rainwater and the USCGCSAA quotes numbers far higher than that. Those numbers do not include wastewater and greywater and would be far higher if they were added.
Take a look at my golf course here: Eagle Ridge GC
Count the ponds, you will see four of them….and pay special attention to the triangular shaped one in the northwestern quadrant. It is our water collection pond.
I know for fact it is not a rarity here and is that nearly any course built now or in the last decade has similar features. That’s because I have spoken with the chapter president of the USGCSAA and he told me so himself. In fact, he said that not only were environmental issues a concern with water, they are economical too because courses simply cannot afford to purchase tens of thousands of gallons of water for each hot day in the summer. Additionally, he added that little of the rough is watered simply because it is not economical. That made perfect sense to me.
Here is another nearby course, Crooked Creek, and you can see their water collection areas.
So yes, it is being done. More are doing it to not only meet environmental needs but to meet the needs of their budgets.
As for being skeptical of environmental issues, perhaps I would be were the leaders realistic and pragmatic, not to mention a lot less hypocritical. When one flies around the country in a Gulfstream jet after leaving an energy sinkhole just to ride around in the very vehicles he wants other people not to use, it is hard to take them seriously.
by Charles Boyer on Feb 11, 2010 3:02 PM EST up reply actions
Then ignore the hypocrites. Al Gore really shouldn’t be anyone’s hero anyhow.
But, to your point about your examples. I’m not saying that it isn’t being done. It’s just not being done in a widespread fashion across the country.
Find me! Email: ryan@thegolfnewsnet.com, Twitter: http://twitter.com/waggleroomryan, or Facebook: http://facebook.com/waggleroom.
by Ryan Ballengee on Feb 11, 2010 8:53 PM EST up reply actions
It’s not just Al Gore. It’s most of the movement — the one that uses scare tactics, misleading statements, worst-case scenarios as expected outcomes, etc.
The simple truth is that behind the green movement there is an extreme left-wing political agenda, one that would make a common rank-and-file Democrat blush. This movement goes beyond statism, instead, it wants to control the daily aspects of our lives to suit their own agenda. The Super Bowl “green police” commercial actually seems to be their fondest dream.
The problem with this is that their extreme and certainly unpragmatic position is actually harmful – with hybrid cars being a stunning example among many others. Instead of advocating extremely high mileage cars that actually emit less CO2 than their hybrid counterparts, they insist that these cars are the way to go. The high mileage cars are not fantasy, they are routinely sold in Europe today and are no secret to anyone except for those who do not care to look.
As for the fertilizers-as-pollution aspect of golf courses, simple mathematics would tell you that the number of acres of golf courses that use fertilizers as compared to other agriculture is quite small. If golf courses stopped using any fertilizers at all, this problem would not go away nor would it noticeably diminish.
by Charles Boyer on Feb 12, 2010 1:25 PM EST up reply actions
Hey CG,
I don’t know how big the jet was, but Gore at this time has no Secret Service detail…that ends 1 year after leaving office for V.Presidents…sorry about that….STUB
Actually, I posted on this exact topic a week ago: http://bit.ly/9Qzbsi
Cited a few sources not mentioned here.
good stuff – and I have played more than a few “brown” courses. personally, I don’t care what color the grass is, I just like greens to be relatively smooth.
"this ball will fit in that fairway"
Our course is about as brown as they get right now, because they don’t overseed…and it will be May at least before that damned Tifway is creeping into my yard from the fairway.
Well, this year, I am surrendering. We have about 40% bermuda, 55% fescue and 5% weeds in the back yard, and I am going to aerate and seed the same bermuda that’s on the course come summer. If you can’t beat em, join em. The only thing I am going to miss is riding my John Deere back and forth on it (I push mow the front, it’s perfect fescue, and yes, Ryan I water it 2x a week.
by Charles Boyer on Feb 11, 2010 3:28 PM EST up reply actions
Nice post, Greg. Had not seen it, but good to know that this discussion is happening in other places!
Find me! Email: ryan@thegolfnewsnet.com, Twitter: http://twitter.com/waggleroomryan, or Facebook: http://facebook.com/waggleroom.
by Ryan Ballengee on Feb 11, 2010 8:54 PM EST up reply actions
Isn't this
what the British Open is for?
"I believe he’s been reincarnated, that he played before, in the twenties and thirties, and he’s back to prove something." - Former teammate Mark McGwire about Albert Pujols
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