Greener Greens
By Lily Auliff

Golfers swing their clubs on more than 100 courses in the area, according to Golf Houston Magazine. Plans for an additional 13 facilities are in the works, says Texas Golfer Magazine. How does the rapid spread of this sport impact the Houston area’s environment? Are local courses small slices of preserved open space, or just over-chemicalized, over-watered urban sprawl?

“One problem with golf courses, like most developed properties, is that there is little habitat being maintained. Of course, there is also the use of pesticides, fertilizers, and water that you will find in any managed landscape,” explains Joellen Zeh of Audubon International (not to be confused with the National Audubon Society), which runs the Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary Program for Golf Courses.

The voluntary program is helping 2,500 golf courses across the country – that’s about 12 percent of all courses – to improve environmental stewardship. About 300 have been certified as Audubon Cooperative Sanctuaries, meaning they excel in six categories: wildlife and habitat management; pesticide use, reduction, and safety; water conservation; water quality management; and outreach and education.

The City of Houston’s seven public golf courses alone suck up nearly 200 million gallons of drinking water annually, paid for by tax dollars. That’s enough to supply more than 2,500 single-family houses. And they use more than four times as many pesticides per acre as other city park areas, according to the Texas Pesticide Information Network.

But, some are changing those statistics. Jason Harsh, superintendent of Memorial Park Golf Course, has made it his personal mission to make his course greener. In fact, Harsh won the 2001 Environmental Stewardship Award for the South Texas Chapter of the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America for his work in resource conservation, water quality management, integrated pest management, habitat management, and outreach.

In his four years at Memorial, Harsh has developed five acres of native wildflowers and grasses, reduced the amount of managed turf, experimented with lower-maintenance grass varieties, introduced an integrated pest management (IPM) strategy, and constructed buffers around lakes to protect water quality and increase habitat. Construction of a new maintenance facility that will filter runoff is underway.

“We’re starting to see a lot more wildlife out here at the golf course,” Harsh notes. We’re seeing increased fish populations, herons, coyotes, all sorts of things.”

Memorial Park Golf Course is also working cooperatively with the City of Houston Water Conservation Division to divert water from Buffalo Bayou for irrigation. Construction of the new system is expected to cost about $1 million, but would save the city approximately $377,000 in water costs annually, according to preliminary evaluation by an independent consulting firm. Using the nutrient-rich bayou water may also reduce fertilizer needs. The project has been approved by City Council and is in the design phase.

The Bayou Preservation Association also says the new system will be beneficial, as long as the course does not take water during periods of low bayou flow, which they have agreed not to do.

More difficult issues arise with golf courses in development. Activists are still fighting construction of a course on 200 acres of bottomland hardwood forests near Lake Jackson. To the west of the city, course after new course eats away native prairie and farmland.

Lakeside Country Club is the only Houston golf course to be certified as an Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary. Others enrolled in the program are: Bay Oaks Country Club Cedar Creek Golf Course Champions Golf Club Hearthstone Country Club Memorial Park Golf Course Pine Forest County Club River Oaks Country Club Wildcat Golf Club

“There are definitely places that golf courses do not belong,” says Zeh, but she has mixed feelings on how to deal with those situations. In one instance, her program denied membership to a facility that was to be developed on sensitive land. “They built the golf course anyway,” she recalls. “It would have been better if we had been involved in that process.”

Although progress is being made, Zeh still faces some resistance in the industry. She explains that there are three reasons that some course managers won’t embrace environmental stewardship. “They think golfers would hate it, the superintendents are already really busy and don’t have time to deal with another program, and they are concerned that turf grass managed in an environmentally sensitive manner is not going to be as high a quality.”

In order to dispel these ideas, Zeh conducted a survey of her members. Results showed that, in the majority of cases, Audubon International’s program increased golfer satisfaction, increased worker satisfaction, and improved actual courses. She hopes that distributing these statistics will encourage more participation.

Zeh’s outlook is positive. “The aesthetics of golf are actually changing,” she says. “It’s a slow process, but we’re getting there.”