Golf Eco-benefits? The industry is lobbying to get the word

It is not difficult to sell players in golf benefits. Fresh air. drill. Friendship. Challenge. The upper parts grow more visible at any pace.

The rest of the world that sometimes needs obedience.

Among the many non-players-let’s not talk here-the game suffers from an image problem.

This is the bad news. The good news is, the reality is not the same as the reputation, and the change in public perception requires no rotation.

Golf has a positive story to tell, and is telling it in Washington, DC, this week.

Thursday is the National Golf Day, an annual case that attracts the leaders of the golf industry in the country’s capital to talk with lawmakers. These conversations cover a series of topics, but their push is this: Golf courses are not just beautiful places to knock a ball around.

In the most appearance, they are community assets, contributing to public health and well -being as open spaces and unspoiled road recreation routes. Properly managed, they can provide environmental benefits, especially in urban areas where the green area is limited. Their yellow extensions provide Habitat for wildlife. They help to seize carbon, improve air quality and contain storm waters runoff, which fights floods. They soothe their surroundings during hot magic.

In 2018, the Congress took into account those facts when it blocked the details of the farm bill. As his name suggests, the draft farm law mainly deals with the supply of the country’s agricultural food. But it also carries deep implications for golf through certain money for field research.

Turf covers 60 million hectares in the United States, making it the fourth largest harvest of the country, used in everything, from commercial and inhabited landscapes to parks and pastures, sports stadiums and neighborhood playgrounds. Turf, of course, is also vital to the Golf industry, which contributes more than $ 100 billion a year for the economy.

Financing for field research, approved in the 2018 farm law, has supported a number of agronomic progress, helping the road to increasingly resilient drugs – more resistant to drought, salt, heat and traffic. This federal money will be ready for authorization this fall when the farm bill comes again before the Congress.

An appropriate time, in other words, to talk to the lawmakers.

However, beyond Beltway lobbying, the industry is inclined to convey its message to the wider public as it pushes forward with research related to its terrain.

This work is a continuation of initiatives dating from the early 1920s, when Usga began to invest in the stability of the golf course. In decades since then, that work has only gained urgency in the face of challenges ranging from increasing maintenance costs to a changing climate and intensifying droughts.

“It is not correct to say that the lack of drought and water is a threat to the existence of golf itself, but they are a threat to the existence of golf in some places,” says Cole Thompson, USGA director for turfgrass and environmental research. “If you accept it as true, then the question is, what do you do about it?”

For the governing body, water storage has long been a focus. Its investments in that front, in the form of research, counseling and education throughout the industry, have paid considerable dividends. Between 2005 and 2020, Golf cut its use of water by 29 percent, two -thirds of which are directly attributed to advances in water efficiency (the other third came from courses closure), according to the American Golf Supervisors Association. During that same period, GCSAA reports, Golf courses in the US reduced their overall irrigated terrain area by 12 percent while calling on their irrigation practices through smarter strategies and sophisticated technology. Along the way, USGA -funded research has helped generate more than 40 new terrains that can stay better at extreme temperatures, illnesses and pests. Many of these varieties can also survive in recycled water, salt water and sewage. Not only are these herbs less thirsty, they are also less selected for what they drink.

The game is far away, but it still has ways to go.

To this end, the USA began what it refers to as a “15/30/45” Campaign – an commitment made in 2022 to invest $ 30 million over the next 15 years to further reduce the use of golf water by 45 percent. There are many ways to do this, some as simple as improving ineffective irrigation systems, others as complex as the use of satellite humidity to determine the water needs of almost every square foot of the terrain.

All of these methods – and more – are laid in USGA Recently, the “PlayBook Book of Water Conservation” was published.

A digital publication, it combines a plus of the USGA green section expertise with findings from high universities, as well as mirrors of supervisors, architects, courses and other industry figures, distilling an information asset to an action plan.

As much as those plans rely on difficult science, they also require communication. Tracking the truth about the game to the non-players is essential. But there is also a main message that players have to hear. It involves the need to fix their expectations, which are often contrary to efficient use of water. Not every course can be held Augusta Green. In doing so, in fact, even be a damage to the course conditions, which can often be improved by irrigating less.

“Golf as a whole uses very little water when measuring it against other industries, but this is not an excuse to think that we have no work to do,” Thompson says. “The other side, the currency, however, is that golf can also do so much. As we move forward, especially in some places, all of us will have to think differently about what looks like a golf course, and how we can be more efficient in maintaining it.”