12 days to the “Sustainable Future of Golf” event at Woodhall Spa on Tuesday 10th September.
Barely a day goes by now where we don’t hear the word “Sustainability”. Are we hearing the word so much that we’re becoming numb to it? Sometimes when a word becomes a buzz word, there is the numbing effect of……oh no, not that again, or……..what does it actually mean?
This is understandable, but perhaps the challenge is to break things back down to simplicity and balance. For example, sustainability on the Golf Course, simply put – what does it mean. It means keeping unnecessary expenditure to a minimum, it means allowing as many Golfers as possible to enjoy your Golf Course (unless of course you have set out with a different objective), it’s looking after the site or piece of ground that you occupy and it also means ensuring that you remain as a viable Golf Course for the next 20, 30,50, 100 years. It’s as simple as that and these things can be achieved with balance.
What does the “balance” imply? Well, that’s about resisting the urge to go from one extreme to the other, it’s incremental change and experimentation, it’s thinking differently but not radically and most importantly, doing what you can within your means.
Now relate these concepts to your Golf Course and what does it look like:
- Minimising Expenditure – Can you reduce water, fuel, chemical, fertiliser costs through looking at your working practices
- Allowing as many Golfers as possible to enjoy your Course – Is it the right length, do you have enough sets of variable length tees, are your bunkers in the right locations, are there too many bunkers or other hazards, and the big one – is it fun to play??
- Looking after your site – Are you paying attention to the biodiversity of your site, are you overfeeding or overusing chemicals on playing surfaces, are you looking after the fauna on your course and are you managing trees and woodlands responsibly?
- Remaining viable for the long-term – Are you responsibly using, storing and thinking about water, do you have a long-term plan for ecology, course design and use of resources?
These are the questions and thought processes that can quickly break down the term “sustainability” into a concise and approachable form. From there, the same questions and concepts can be rolled out for the Clubhouse, Practice facilities and other parts of your property.
I look forward to hearing more of these topics explored at the “Sustainable Future of Golf” event at Woodhall Spa on Tuesday 10th September. Golf Club Talk UK will also be recording some content on-site for a future episode.
Leighton Walker