Showing posts with label Stewardship. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Stewardship. Show all posts

Fife Golf Trust - Driving The Green Across Public Golf Courses

Following in the footsteps of the world’s most famous public course - St.Andrews Links, the Fife Golf Trust has stepped up its commitment to environmental and social performance. The trust enrolled all seven of its public golf facilities in the GEO OnCourse™ programme, to work toward the international ecolabel for sustainable golf, GEO Certified™.

Confirming the commitment at a seminar on green golf held in St. Andrews, Paul Murphy, the new head of golf course management for the Fife Golf Trust said:
“The seven courses we oversee across the Kingdom of Fife are fantastic recreational resources, very well used by local people of all ages and backgrounds. Our vision is to make them even better by deepening the positive impact in their communities, for golfers and non-golfers; to make them as ecologically rich as we can; and to be even more efficient in our use of resources such as water, energy, fertilisers and pesticides.

We considered a number of ways to achieve our vision, and quickly agreed that the GEO On Course™ programme is far and away the best means to help us plan and coordinate the effort, encouraging and making it easier for Greenkeepers and other staff to make improvements that bring practical results. And for us, overseeing several courses, the “management group” tools are a good way for other managers and me to track and support the work going on at each site. 

Fife Council's policies on sustainability - covering biodiversity, waste, climate change, pollution prevention and social inclusion are very strong and our golf facilities are well placed to meet them.

We'll be working hard to be the first municipality in the world to have all our clubs and courses GEO Certified™ in the year ahead”.

Kelli Jerome, GEO Director of Programme Management said:

"Municipal golf courses are vital for good quality, affordable and accessible golf in local communities. We’re pleased that the OnCourse™ programme has been selected to help Paul and his team reduce operational costs and improve the golfing and ecological quality of the courses. 

Everything the GEO Certified™ ecolabel stands for matches well with government policies in climate change, biodiversity, waste, social inclusion, health, youth recreation and environmental quality. It will be great to see more municipal golf courses following the example Fife Golf Trust is setting.” 

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About GEO

GEO is a stakeholder-funded, not-for-profit organization, dedicated to helping the global golf community establish leadership in environmental enhancement and corporate responsibility. GEO Certified™ is the world's most constructive and credible ecolabel for golf course and club management.

GEO works with golf, government and environmental organizations worldwide, including The European Tour, United Nations Environment Programme, The R&A and the Club Managers Association of America. For more information, please see: www.golfenvironment.org

Media Enquiries: Kelli Jerome, GEO Director of Programme Management
T: +44 1620 895100E: kelli@golfenvironment.org

Video: "Green" Efforts of Golf Courses, Urban Tree Cover

Founded in 1911, the College of Environmental Science and Forestry at the State University of New York is the nations oldest and one of the most respected schools dedicated to the study of the environment. In their most recent edition of their regular video series they discuss a few of the most common "green" efforts of golf courses. These include naturalization and restoring brown fields mostly. The segment is about ten minutes long and is the first of three segments in this video. The third segment may also be of interest. Starting at 18:40, this segment looks at urban tree cover study that looks at the effect of changing this cover on a city.

A Look At Kiawah Golf Resort


The Kiawah Island Golf Resort in Southern Carolina is a leader in sustainability in our industry. They have plenty awards for their numerous projects and have truly made an impression with environmentalists, local residents and their guests. Below you'll find many examples of their projects and how they communicate their actions to guests and community.


Michigan Turfgrass Environmental Stewardship Program

Here at Turfhugger, when we talk about "Environmental Stewardship Programs" we tend to concentrate on the big guys: Audubon International, Golf Environment Organisation and Audubon Lifestyles Program. It's easy to forget there are other programs developed on a regional level, some of which continue to be successful today despite the huge PR campaigns and industry exception of the big guys. The Michigan Turfgrass Environmental Stewardship Program is a great example of this.

Watch the video, then there's a lot of great info and resources about the program after the jump.

10 Golf Questions Video Series

Got some time to burn? Sure we all do right now. When you do find time for some Golf and Environment related background noise check out the "10 Questions" video series produced by BunkerShot.com and GolfTV. Here's a few that Turfhugger readers will likely enjoy.


Noble Hendrix & Bill Crispin of The Golfpreserves

Dave Aardsma from Waste Management, the title sponsors of the 2010 Phoenix Open.

Nest Watch at The Bear Trace at Harrison Bay

I'm an avid reader of Superintendent blogs and enjoy the first hand accounts of all sorts of golf course happenings from around the world. This morning I came upon a post by Paul L. Carter,
Certified Golf Course Superintendent at The Bear Trace at Harrison Bay. Paul has a number of very interesting post's that Turfhugger readers would enjoy including:

Since the Cornell Lab of Ornithology Nest Watch has been on my long list of "Blog Post To Do's" for some time, I figured I'd ask Paul permission to repost his entry here on Turfhugger. Be sure to stop by his blog, from Paul's recent post "Cornell Lab of Ornithology Nest Watch"...

2011 British Open

The question on everyones mind for the 2011 British Open is surely not wether or not Rory will raise the Jug (and the bar), but what Environmental Stewardship or Sustainability efforts take place at Royal St George's Golf Club?

So, Turfhugger did some digging around and found a little something that only those who attend the event will get a chance to see, A Guide To Environmental Management of the Links.

This 34 page guide does a great job at discussing how the efforts at Royal St Georges reflect on the industry as a whole and that the R&A take sustainability seriously. It goes on to describe how habitat is protected, the ecological significance of the Sandwich Bay, the diversity of flora and fauna, management strategies to protect habitat, responsible turf management, overall environmental protection and resource conservation. All in all, a fantastic little guide. To boot it's printed on paper from sustainably managed forests.

Open 2011 Royal St Georges_Wildlife

Creating environmental guides for British Open venues is nothing new, to my knowledge the R&A has been putting these little booklets together since 2000. Here's some pics from my copy of the 2005 THE OLD COURSE A Guide to it's Environmental Management. 



Visit the R & A website at this link to see all of the Open Wildlife Publications.

(thanks to Alexandra Almeida for this link)