Growing a Greener Golf Course

A number of years ago, I was touring gardens in Shady Canyon, then a brand new development of grand homes in Irvine, California. The homes wound up and down the side of a hill – each property with a gorgeous view. As we stood in the backyard of one home under construction, I looked down into the canyon where bulldozers were carving out narrow ribbons in the chaparral. Of course I asked what was going on. Golf course

At Shady Canyon Golf Club, a ribbon of green was carved out of the chaparral.

It turned out, they were building a golf course, using a different and novel approach. The way the course was designed, only the play surfaces were to be covered in turf. Of the several hundred acres, nearly all the rest was left as native habitat.

This week’s episode, Growing a Greener Golf Course, started with that memory. I had long wondered how the golf course course turned out, how it integrated into the habitat surrounding it, and how its use of water, fertilizers, and pesticides affected the plants and animals of the chaparral.

I also wondered if and how golf courses have evolved from vast, park-like expanses of thirsty green turf, especially here in Southern California. In my years working with water issues, I learned that water is one of the biggest line items in every golf course budget, so superintendents and golf course managers pay serious attention to water management. That is one reason why more and more courses are irrigated with recycled water — purple pipe water — instead of potable water.

Native flowers bloom in the habitat restored with the construction of The Crossings golf course in Carlsbad, California

So for this episode, we visited five of the region’s most beautiful golf courses, from the historic Palos Verdes Golf Club on the Palos Verdes Peninsula in Orange County, to the renowned Torrey Pines Golf Course in San Diego County. We saw how precisely courses and their greens are managed.  Course superintendents showed us how they use water, how they manage water, and the technology and the science behind these efforts.

We visited a golf course that started off as controversial, only to became the cornerstone of a city’s Habitat Conservation Plan. On another course, we toured with a landscape designer who focuses on the non-play surfaces. He showed us how newer courses are designed to leave as much habitat intact as possible. His plant palette is waterwise natives and waterwise non-natives. He uses the same plant palette on older courses as they carve away at the fringes of the turf, to save water, save money, and simply to do the “right” thing.

Arborist Ed Drobnicki shows me a young Torrey pine, planted to ensure this signature tree survives into the next generation

In addition to all of this, I learned about golf course etiquette. I am not a golfer so I was clueless about the culture of golf or how one behaves on the course. There were times when I drove my golf cart the wrong way  on a one-way route, or cut across the rough at the wrong time, or talked too loudly when one of the golfers was preparing to swing. Everyone was very forgiving, fortunately.

Ultimately, we visited Shady Canyon Golf Club, too. We toured on a cold, sunny day in early spring when the native bush sunflower was in dazzling yellow bloom. Egrets swooped low over the irrigation reservoir, and oak trees – some natural, some planted – towered overhead. It was as lovely as walking a trail through the backcountry. I was almost ready to sign up for golf lessons, though this private course is a bit out of my price range. Oh well!

— Nan Sterman