It’s a gorgeous, postcard-worthy morning. You’ve just snaked home a 20-foot putt, watching with delight as your golf ball tracks perfectly through the dew and into the cup.
You reach into the cup thinking all is right with the world … only to recoil at the sight of the foreign object that emerges - a ball and hand dripping with blue-green goo.
Every golfer has experienced this iridescent buzzkill. And the same three thoughts have then occurred to every golfer in rapid succession: What is that stuff? Will my hand disintegrate if I don’t wash it in 30 seconds? And is this entire course, so unnaturally green, one enormous chemical stew?
***
John Burns, the superintendent at Augustine Golf Club in Stafford, Va., chuckles at the line of questioning.
“That’s marker dye,” Burns says. “It’s a soybean oil-based product to help you keep track of where you’ve sprayed, so you don’t overlap or miss spots when you’re putting down product. The dye is totally harmless, and the product should be as well. But I don’t disagree that it’s not the best welcome to the golf course. That’s why we try to put down those applications very early in the morning, so players never experience that.”
With more than 30 years of experience in the field, Burns is a guy you want on the other end of a sprayer. He’s not a “nozzlehead,” an insider’s term for greenskeepers who tend to overapply.
Burns is what those in the industry would call a steward of the environment, which is why Augustine is one of only 26 courses among the hundreds of facilities in the Virginia/D.C./Maryland region officially certified as a member of Audubon International’s Cooperative Sanctuary Program.
The green movement has found golf. In actuality, certain elements within the golf industry (the USGA, PGA of America and Golf Course Superintendents Association of America) embraced the concept of environmental stewardship well over a decade ago. But the green movement itself didn’t find mainstream America until Al Gore rehashed a half-dozen other documentaries a couple of years ago.
Now, suddenly, it’s keen to be green. And the golf industry, with its vast acreage of manicured turf, is a gleaming emerald bull’s-eye.
“Golf courses are an important contributor to the pesticide problem,” says Jay Feldman, the executive director of the National Campaign Against the Misuse of Pesticides. “Golf courses often have communities that surround them. There’s often runoff. There’s off-target impact caused by drift [applying pesticides loosely or in breezy conditions]. There’s exposure to wildlife and neighbors. There are major concerns about the types of pesticides used on golf courses and the quantities and manner in which they are used.”
Feldman’s assertions prompt the following questions: Do golf courses pose a major environmental hazard? Is there an alternative to conventional pesticide use? If so, is it a viable alternative from both a playability and economic standpoint? Are there systems in place to aid the greening of golf? What are the game’s primary environmental concerns moving forward?
Over the next several days, The Washington Times will address these questions in a series of stories focused on golf and the environment.
As recently as 20 years ago, golf could have been classified as an eco-hazard. Many of the well-established programs and practices that have made the game more environmentally friendly were then nonexistent or in their infancy. And one dangerous class of pesticide was still in its heyday.
“In my mind, the use of organophosphates did more to stigmatize the industry than anything else,” says Stuart Cohen, president of Environmental and Turf Services Inc. in Wheaton - a firm that helps architects, builders and superintendents identify site-specific turf-growing challenges and respond with maintenance solutions that balance environmental sensitivity with economic practicality. “Those are a class of pesticides which are neurotoxins. They were routinely used in the ’70s and ’80s, and they definitely had a negative impact on the wildlife. While some of those products are still available, their use in the industry has been severely if not entirely curtailed. I travel extensively in this hemisphere visiting courses, and I haven’t seen a fish or avian kill directly attributable to pesticides in a decade.”
Frank Rossi, an associate professor of Turfgrass Science at Cornell, agrees with Cohen’s assessment that a broader ecological impact from pesticide use on golf courses no longer is an issue.
Rossi and his students have conducted a study on the Green Course at Bethpage State Park in New York since 2001. Their goal is to attempt a pesticide-free strategy on the greens that maximizes playability.
Rossi also pulls no punches when it comes to Feldman’s criticism of the golf industry.
“Jay Feldman is a lunatic. You give him the podium, and he’ll accuse us of using the same compounds the Nazis used to dose the Jews. Now, 10 or 15 years ago, he might not have been far from the truth. But today that’s ludicrous. His campaign of misinformation makes him as irresponsible as the worst people in our industry, but nobody calls him out on it.”
Feldman counters that today’s pesticide use is responsible for less acute effects than fish and bird kills. The European Union, for instance, has identified a list of chemicals that contribute to endocrine disruption in wildlife and humans (linked to infertility and other long-term health issues). But the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has no such target list, primarily because the study of endocrine disruption and its correlation to pesticide exposure is still a relatively new field.
What is clear is the golf industry has cleaned up its act over the last two decades when it comes to pesticide use.
“There’s no question about that,” Burns says. “For instance, when I first started in this business, we didn’t have nearly the weather-gauging technology we have now. You’d have guys putting out fertilizer on what was forecast to be a sunny day, and then you’d have an unexpected deluge come and wash all of that fertilizer right into your lakes. That’s unacceptable now because we have a much better handle on the weather. Plus, here we have unmowed areas around all of our water features to act as a nutrient filter.
“There might still be bad actors out there when it comes to pesticide use, but I don’t know any, and I know superintendents all over the country. The business has simply changed. Education is better. Awareness is better. People are more cognizant of what they’re putting out and how it might impact the environment. Obviously, you have to have a pesticide license. The equipment is better. …
“And then there’s something I’m not sure enough people understand. Guys in my profession have embraced this not just because it’s environmentally sound practice but also because it saves money. Chemicals are expensive. Nobody wants to use more synthetic product than they have to because its going to pound their budget.”
And in the event the product is overapplied, what are the likely environmental repercussions?
“The synthetics are improving all the time,” Rossi says. “There are an array of reduced-risk compounds out there now that are producing minuscule off-target effects - we’re talking about grams per acre. When you think about all the risks the environment faces today and moving forward, I think golf courses are a pimple on an elephant’s [behind].
“Now that doesn’t absolve any of us of constantly trying to do things better, but the industry is completely different than when I came out here as a kid and the only concern was that playing conditions be perfect. As an industry, we are and have been moving quickly in the right direction.”
Please read our comment policy before commenting.