Get ready for golf courses to start doing double duty. It's no longer good enough to keep a beautiful course for the benefit of wealthy golfers only. If golf superintendents don't find ways to show that they care about the needs of their surrounding community, they may find disgruntled "occupiers" camping out on their practice greens.
We're doing the zero waste golf demo park thing, and we suggest that you do too. But there are a lot of ways to connect to the community. Use your imagination.
Excess and need are crucial complements in our wholistic universe. What does your community need? What do you have to offer? Think up a project and apply for some local grants or petition your local service group for some volunteer help to accomplish a community project. The holiday season is a great time to reach out. How about gift cards for greens fees in which a portion (or all) of the money goes to local charities?
Here's an idea...How about promoting an event at your course where members clean out their garage of old unused golf clubs and stuff. Gather them all up at the clubhouse, and then one special day, give them all away to young people under the age of 18, who would like to try golf, but don't have the bucks. This would be a wonderful zero waste project. The old clubs will be reused, young potential golfers will pay to play with their new clubs, and your course makes a connection with the community.
At Dairy Creek, we make compost tea from our food wastes to use on the course in lieu of chemical fertilizers. But we can make way more than we can use, and it doesn't cost anything but the power to run the bubbler. We're going to start giving it away on Saturdays to promote zero waste and to benefit the environment, but also as a way we can connect with our community and non-golfers. We'll do anything to avoid occupiers from pitching their tents on the driving range.
This is the way courses everywhere should be thinking... but so few of them are, and it's ultra-rare to find any golf writers, journalists, bloggers, scribes, etc who'll touch the subject. The culture of golf... particularly here in the US... is still mired in old-fashioned thinking and no one wants to risk alienating the core customer. Unfortunately that core customer is aging and young players are turned off by a game that's become draconian, environmentally unfriendly and ultra-expensive... which is why rounds are declining and courses are closing.
ReplyDeleteThere are some golf people... like you... who "get it", but they're few and far between. I hope your message gets through to some of those who can make a difference. Keep up the good work!
Thanks for the comment Patricia. I and my associates only came up with the idea...Josh Heptig, our county golf superintendent, really deserves most of the credit because he has fully supported and worked at developing the "zero waste park" at Dairy Creek, from the beginning. If the young breed of superintendents will take the lead greening the game, the community will follow. It's unbelievable how much community and global golf industry interest and support is coming at us. Thanks again for your interest.
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