The Water Course -- Why a water column?

Scott Harrison

Water is the lifeblood of your operation. You can't realize a golf course's full potential without high-quality water resources. Your course won't be as successful if it's perceived to be a threat to the environment.

The focus of this column is twofold: How to manage water resources to provide maximum benefit to the golf course and how to manage golf operations to maximize protection of water resources. While some critics claim these goals are mutually exclusive, we know better. The industry has improved the image of golf courses and has made strides in promoting best management practices. Still, not every superintendent has all the information needed to implement a well thought out, integrated water-management plan.

That's exactly what I want to do in this column -- provide information in small, digestible servings. I'll address basics, such as the hydrologic cycle and geological concepts, as well as more advanced topics such as water law and water-quality monitoring procedures. The intent is to make you more knowledgeable about the science of water so you can become a more effective water resource manager.

With such information, your greens, tees and fairways will benefit agronomically through improved soil conditioning and pest management efficacy. As a result, your course will play better and better endure traffic. Overall, your facility will attract more play and cost less to operate.

Those are just the short-term benefits. In the long run, your water-management efforts contribute to the conservation of a finite resource. It's a contribution of which you can be proud and which you can leverage for positive public relations and goodwill in your community. If you are monitoring water-quality indicators on your course, you are developing the data baseline on which the golf course industry will depend to counter critics and promote continued growth.

The water issues that have challenged the golf industry are going to be with us for years. That's why GCSAA has the Environmental Steward Awards, and it's the reason The GCSAA Foundation and the USGA are sponsoring university research to answer questions surrounding the impact of pesticide and fertilizer use on golf courses. And it's why states from Hawaii to New Jersey are leaning on golf course developers to demonstrate a thorough examination of environmental issues and a thoughtful approach to addressing them.

Last year, the golf world was introduced to the "Environmental Principles for Golf Courses in the United States." That document contains many ideas about planning, conservation and resource protection that are either directly or indirectly related to water management. If, as an industry and a profession, we're going to embrace those principles and live by them, we all need to know some technical details about the resource we profess to respect.

So plan to make this a regular stop. It will make you a better agronomist, a better environmental steward and a better corporate citizen. The aim of the column is simple: To make you and your colleagues better at what you do.

Scott Harrison develops water information for clients of Nittany Geoscience Inc., in State College, Pa. He formerly developed pesticide management programs for Pennsylvania State University.