Survey says… stand up and be counted

Much has been made of GCSAA’s mission to establish an unprecedented Golf Course Environmental Profile baseline, but sometimes I wonder if the true value of those efforts are reaching their primary audience — the superintendent profession at large.

The project, spearheaded by The Environmental Institute for Golf through a series of surveys on land and water use, turf-care product use and energy use and the respective environmental stewardship practices thereof, completed its first go-around with its fifth and final survey last month. They’ll do it all over again in about five years to give the baseline information a viable measurement against itself.

Underwritten by The Institute and The Toro Giving Program, the project’s first two surveys — land use and environmental stewardship, and water use and conservation practices — have been released to the public. The results, for the most part, have been an affirmation of America’s golf course operations and how they conduct their business. More important, the bold, stand-up-and-be-counted effort by superintendents to determine golf’s impact on the environment in actual terms has drawn notable praise from golf course management’s periphery.

“I use (the information) to educate PGA members about the environmental impact of our game and the fields on which it’s played. I also use it in public relations almost every time I do an interview,” says PGA of America CEO Joe Steranka, who notes that his own organization has spent millions of dollars on researching golf operations. “The investment by GCSAA and the EIFG is invaluable in establishing that baseline. We’ve pledged to use that data in the education of PGA members to support and achieve a team approach to managing the environment.”

Adds the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s branch chief for its Office of Pesticide Programs, Environmental Stewardship, Tom Brennan: “We’re approaching an era of a holistic view of one’s footprint in the community. There has been a lot of intellectual commitment, but few have made the commitment to establish a baseline to document a starting point. GCSAA is in a good place to be able to define its impact on the environment.”

But it’s the reaction from within the superintendent ranks that, while not exactly muted, has been sparingly forthcoming. Like it or not, this environmental profile signals the need for individual superintendents to stand up and be counted as well — not only in continued environmental practices on their golf courses, but also to do so in a transparent way through communications, community outreach and similar means to combat the historically negative perception of golf course maintenance.

A couple of grassroots case studies in point are featured on Page 66 of this issue of GCM. I’m sure there are more stories like Jack MacKenzie’s and Greg Holder’s out there, but how many more?

Make no mistake … if you’re not paying attention to these kinds of issues now, sooner or later, you will be.