The Greening of the Greens 

Golf gets back to nature, inviting everyone to play

Jay Stuller / Smithsonian Apr97

Using natural landforms and native grasses and plants, golf course designers are creating links that are environmentally up to par.

Standing at the tee of Cloverdale Golf Club's ninth hole on a summer evening, one can't help but absorb the surroundings. On the verdant floor of the Stillaguamish Valley, you're enveloped by the foothills of Washington's Cascades, off which reflect twilight hues of sage and purple. To the left, screened by cottonwoods and maples, is the valley's namesake river Ahead, on a rise behind the ninth green, is a classic red barn. The pastoral quiet is broken only by the screech of a nearby eagle.

Such reverie must pass, for the 390-yard, par-4 hole demands a golfer's lull attention--if only because about 80 yards shy of the green and to the right lurks a hazard that might take the "Tiger" out of Eldrick Woods, the wunderkind of the professional tour. "It's the lagoon," says Cloverdale co-owner Cynthia Witshire. "Although it's dry now, at times we've had to tell city folk they shouldn't go in there looking for lost balls. You see, ml a daily farm, a lagoon is where you store the barn's washed-down manure."

It's unlikely Cloverdale will ever host a pro tournament because it bears little resemblance to meticulously manicured courses such as Augusta National, Pebble Beach and Pinehurst. Its fairways are bumpy and rugged. Tufts of thick canary grass dot the rough. Skunk cabbage sprouts from wallows near several holes. Its clubhouse is a shed adjacent to the barn.

The "Green Acres" look is authentic because until three years ago, Rick and Cynthia Witscher did indeed keep a herd of Holstein on this 150-acre spread, just outside the town of Arlington, 60 miles north of Seattle. "In 1988, we were the Snohomish County Dairy Family of the Year," explains Rick. "But milk prices were the pits; we were losing our shirts. So we decided to grow bent-grass turf for the golf and landscape industries."

While farmers understand grass, the Witscher knew little about golf-except that turf buyers kept wanting to hit balls at the greens they'd grown. Thus inspired, Rick read what he could on course design and eventually created an 18-hole layout. He placed most greens on existing rises on the river's floodplain. His fairways follow contours shaped by ancient riverbeds, sandbars and the hooves of cattle. Thickets of brush and boulders and patches of exposed sand were left in place as hazards to challenge golfers. Because the hardy turf comprises six types of native grasses, the course requires neither pesticides nor an irrigation system.

In 1996, Cloverdale hosted 25,000 rounds of golf, up from 20,000 the year before. With its low-key atmosphere (the clubhouse has an "honor box," into which players drop their modest fees when the Witschers put up their "Out Mowing" sign), the course beckons golfers of all levels of ability-and from all social strata.

A country-club showcase Cloverdale is not. But the Witschers created a course with attributes that architects often struggle mightily to duplicate. What's more, their modest operation is a refreshing counterpoint to criticisms of a sport that once seemed beyond reproach.

Even as golf's popularity soared in the late 1980s- growing from fewer than 20 million U.S. participants to more than 25 million today-the game and its fields of play have come under withering fire. "What was once accepted as a benign form of open space is under attack for its impacts on water quality, wildlife habitat and land USC," explains Paul Parker, a vice president with the Center for Resource Management, a nonprofit organization based in Salt Lake City and Denver that tries to find common ground between business and environmental interests.

There are already more than 15,000 golf courses in the United States, which together take up more area than Delaware and Rhode island combined. Since 1990, an average of more than 350 new or expanded courses have opened annually, each 18-hole course covering about 150 acres. Another 1,600 courses are planned or are under construction.

This is welcome news for hackers who must hustle to cadge scarce tee times. But the lust for new courses raises

serious questions. For one thing, is carving fairways out of a forest, moving a million cubic yards of seaside sand dunes or planting thirsty Bermuda grass in desert settings-where a course can quaff up to a million gallons of water a day-an intelligent use of land? For another, is keeping courses green and free of weeds, brown spots and bugs worth the liberal use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides?

Much of this is done in the interest of the perceived perfection that's come to be known as the "Augusta National Syndrome," named for the fabled Georgia course that hosts the Masters tournament each spring. "People see this highly manicured layout on television, with wall-to-wall green fairways and blooming flowers wherever you look," says Parker. "It is beautiful. But the conditions are completely unnatural."

Still, this televised perfection-standards that are also nurtured by features in golf magazines and resort ads-generates expectations that oh-so picky golfers demand of designers and course superintendents. In addition, architects began designing incredibly difficult, championship-style courses, mainly to please developers out to attract professional events, or to lure guests to resorts where it can cost $100 to play a round

"Because of these trends we've fashioned ourselves a real image problem," ' says Michael Hurdzan one of the world's top golf architects. "Golf is often viewed as a sport for rich white guys who despoil the environment. That elitist image makes us a fat and easy target. "

With a doctorate in plant physiology the outgoing and thoughtful Hurdzan designs both upscale private courses and low-cost public facilities. "What isn't widely known is that the industry has put an incredible amount of money and effort into research on turf grasses that require little or no pesticides, and which need less water," he says. "We have scientific studies that prove well-designed courses don't pollute the environment. We can even make them beneficial to wildlife by reclaiming wasteland or converting old landfills into healthy spaces that are useful to a community. And courses don't have to be expensive to build or play "

A student of his processional forebears, Hurdzan also recognizes that some answers to the questions menacing golf's future rest in history, and that today's criticisms are supremely ironic given the games origins. That's why there's a certain rightness to the Witschers' rough-and-ready golf club. Cloverdale is a course for the next century, if only because nearly everything about it suggests that it's a course straight out of the past.

"The architect of the land . . . is God."

On the forth hole of the Old Course in St. Andrews, Scotland, Mike Mordan has just smacked a long-iron shot that's been snagged and slowed by the branch of a bush. As the Chicago pension consultant walks past the prickly brown-and-green shrub, he lightly brushes it with his hand and, with the bemused resignation so common to golfers, asks aloud: "Who put this here?"

Caddy Dave Hutchison, who for 22 years has looped bags around St. Andrews, cocks his head, looks quizzically at Mordan and pauses for several seconds.

"God," he answers. "There's nothing on this course that was made by man. Golfers play on it. But the architect the land . . . is God."

Religion aside, there's no argument that for golfers, no piece of ground is more sacred than these 18 holes wedged between eastern Scotland farmland and coastal dunes along the North Sea. The Old Course site allegedly been trod by golfers since the 1500s. And no one knows who designed the current layout on narrow strip of salt-tolerant marram grass and finer fescues cropped by sheep and cattle.

Says George Grant, who has lived all of his 62 years in Andrews, "Local lore has it that the bunkers were created by sheep nestling in hollows to seek shelter in storms. The sand and bunker walls have, of course, been tidied up f or golf. But the story of the sheep is one heard my whole life."

If it's true, says Hurdzan, Scotland has the world's smartest sheep, "since the bunkers are lined up precisely to points of play." When legendary course architect Alister Mackenzie analyzed St. Andrews, he came to the conclusion that people kept hitting shots to the same spots, and by repeated play scratched the turf down to sand. "Sheep might then have nestled in the low spots," says Hurdzan, "but the golfers developed the hazards." St. Andrews and similar courses gave rise to a game that was shaped by the landscape, and not a game that shaped the land. This very simplicity made primordial golf accessible to the common man.

"The Scots are thrifty people," says Hurdzan. "Their courses were laid out on a rolling terrain with little modification to the ground." Call this a necessity, since at many ancestral courses no green fees were charged for what was, after all, a shared community asset.

For a course to be enjoyable, relaxing and a test of skill, it should first offer a measure of safety. That means clear lines of sight for those striking balls, or enough space or barriers to prevent others from getting conked by a wayward shot. It should have variety, in the lengths of holes and the severity of hazards. Those holes must also have a progression and flow that keeps players engaged and the traffic moving.

Throw in the technical aspects of drainage and irrigation requirements, and the task of routing an 18-hole layout on less than 200 acres of land becomes bit more complex than your typical course critic may imagine. Most courses require at least some modifications to an existing landscape.

"With bulldozers, synthetic fertilizers and water, architects could build courses just about anywhere," says Hurdzan. Such capabilities-driven by consumer demand-is what led to courses in deserts, sprawling layouts that anchored housing developments and plans for resort courses in spots that caused environmentalists to go ballistic. The question "Why here?" seemed particularly pertinent in 1982 when developers proposed building a course in a meadow in Squaw Valley, California.

With new resorts, casinos and golf courses in the works on the Nevada side of nearby Lake Tahoe, local officials and businessmen could near the sound of tourist: money being vacuumed across the state line. A premium resort and golf course at Squaw Valley would keep some spending on California's side.

In opposition were Squaw Valley homeowners whose residences looked out over the meadow, home to redtailed hawks and a summertime explosion of wildflowers. In addition,, environmentalists feared that golf course pesticides would contaminate an aquifer beneath the site and that nitrogen fertilizers would damage surrounding wetlands. Finally, Squaw Valley is often buried under 20 feet of snow; would a course that could remain open only four or five months each year be worth the risks? Legal and regulatory threats stalled the project.

But to the credit of its owners, and the Robert Trent Jones jr. firm that designed the course, the Squaw Creek Golf Resort evolved into a case study of how a golf course can have a surprisingly low impact on even a sensitive environmental area. Moreover, the Squaw Valley meadow wasn't quite as pristine as it had seemed.

"Once we started closely analyzing the property," recalls Kyle Phillips, design vice president at Trent Jones, "we learned that in preparation for the 1960 Winter Olympics, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had blasted out boulders and leveled a lot of the meadow for parking lots. Then, when we took samples from what was considered the valley's most vulnerable wetland, we found it was a leach field for the septic tanks of the surrounding homes. They'd been on a sewer for years, but stuff was still leaching into the marsh."

The design plan limited Squaw Creek's playing area to just 80 acres. Boardwalks carry players over marsh and meadow areas. The builders also restored acres of native grasses and enhanced natural filtration ponds for water feeding Squaw Creek.

Squaw Creek is now certified as a "Cooperative Sanctuary" by Audubon International, which has a program that recognizes environmentally compatible golf courses. But it took a decade for Squaw Creek-which finally opened in 1992-to get through a thicket of environmental opposition and regulatory problems. Time is money, and the maintenance regimen at this course is costly. A midsummer round at the resort will thin a golfer's wallet by $110.

The golf industry and environmentalists continued to spar. In 1995, the Center for Resource Management, Golf Digest magazine, Pebble Beach Resort, and the National Wildlife Federation organized a summit meeting. The conference brought together about 80 members of the golf industry, the environmental community and various government agencies. "You can't imagine a group of people more wary of each other," recalls Parker.

"But the participants started to find some common ground," he continues. "While some designers contend they can build a course anywhere, I think they came to realize that there are some sites where you shouldn't build a course. Environmentalists were surprised by the amount of research the United States Golf Association (USGA) has put into developing turf grasses, into drainage systems that minimize runoff and in creating habitats that attract wildlife . "

Eventually a broad coalition that included Friends of the Earth, the USGA, Sierra Club and the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America agreed on a set of principles to guide construction of new courses and maintenance of existing ones. It also admonishes golfers who complain about imperfect conditions, and suggests that an environmentally sound course is a quality course, brown spots, thin turf and all.

Still, many proposed courses meet feverish opposition "Environmentalists who truly care about the ecosystem are reasonable and understand that when we create biodiversity on a golf course, our objectives are mutual," says Hurdzan. "But we still face zealots who blame all the world's ills on development and are out to stop it without bothering to see what goes into a course that's built the right way. "

On a steaming September afternoon in California's Coachella Valley, Hurdzan provides an on-site analysis of a course that was built in the wrong way At a Palm Springs area resort that shall go unnamed, the trim and relaxed architect stops the golf cart before he and his companion reach the first tee.

"A desert is one of the earth's most stark and dramatic landscapes," he explains, "and it's one that not many people get the pleasure to experience firsthand. But look around and what do you see? Concrete ponds, mounds covered with grass and decorative plants, bushes and palm trees that aren't native to anywhere within 500 miles. It's like whoever built this place tried to disguise the fact that we're in a desert. I hate to sound so picky, but there's no realism to this place, no character that makes the course memorable or puts you in touch with the environment," Hurdzan sighs. "When you see a place like this, it says 'opportunity lost."'

Putting health back into the land

Approaching the peak of a 25-year career in which he's designed more than 200 courses, Mike Hurdzan hasn't missed many opportunities his holistic environmental approach to design makes Hurdzan a bit different from his fellow architects, however site of an abandoned gravel quarry in Scituate, Massachusetts. An eyesore of dirt-bike trails and illegally dumped home appliances and fires, the quarry has long been devoid of vegetation and wildlife. "It's a chance to take a biologically impoverished site and, by developing a golf course, put some health back into the land," Says Hurdzan.

Scheduled for play in mid-1997, Widow's Walk will also be an experiment, with three different types of green construction, each rigged with computerized monitors to measure soil temperature, moisture and fertility. The public course will also be planted with drought-resistant fescue grasses and other tests of maintenance practices. It will generate data that Hurdzan hopes will be of use to the entire industry

The course that Hurdzan calls "the most important project of my life" is now under way in Palm Desert California, not all that far from the worst-case example. Called Desert Willow, it's on a piece of city-owned land. Hurdzan is using $10 million of Palm Desert's redevelopment money to build a facility that will give resident golfers a chance to play a big-budget course at municipal prices. He's creating a layout with enough championship style to attract a major PGA tournament and designing a course that looks as if it truly is a pan of this desert environment.

Trudging up the seventh fairway of the Desert Willow site-at present, little more than sand-Hurdzan stops to admire the mounding by the project's construction company. "They've rearranged about a million cubic yards of sand," he says, "but it all comes from this site- and the mounding is modeled after nearby sand dunes. The high ground flanking the fairways will shelter golfers from wind and create spectator areas for tournaments. We're going to plant only 75 to 80 acres in grass; the areas just off the rough will be sand. "

In Desert Willow, Hurdzan has enough acreage to use several sets of tees that can challenge the pros yet make the course strategic and fun for players of all levels. "To the average golfer this course is going to look difficult," he explains, "hut because of wide landing areas and 'containment' mounds that stop sliced shots from getting you into big trouble, it's going to play much easier than it appears."

What's more, the esthetics will give Desert Willow a distinctive character "I hate courses that make you feel as if you could be plopped down in the middle of anywhere," says Hurdzan. "Here, golfers will know they've been in the desert. And with the way the course is laid out, I think they'll remember different shots, different holes-all the textures and elements they've seen "

What makes Desert Willow special for Hurdzan is that it has big-budget quality, yet will charge reasonable, public-course fees. "Public golf is the heart and soul of the game," he says, "and these are the players who've been getting the short end of the stick during the course-building boom."

Cloverdale Golf Club is the essence of public golf. For just $15 for 18 holes, a round here is time and money well spent. And what Rick and Cynthia Witscher have done-without training in golf architecture, maintenance or operations-is awe-inspiring. Laid upon their former farm is a course that's as environmentally light on the land as Scotland's ancient links.

"It was just amazing when we started mowing the pasture," recalls Rick Witscher "As soon as we cut the tall orchard and rye grasses, fine fescues emerged, since they were no longer blocked from the sunlight. The fescues thickened the fairway turf, while the natural clover in the fields is a good nitrogen fixer. I planted bentgrass greens, but I'm going to let the Poa annua, an annual bluegrass, take over, because it's easier to maintain."

While a country-clubber may snicker at Cloverdale's residual agrarian ambiance, this course has a rather for midable advocate in the person of one Wiffi Smith. The Witschers' unofficial head pro and advisor, Smith, who resides in nearby Darrington and makes a living teaching golf around the country, is a remarkable story herself

In 1956, at the age of 20, Smith wrapped up a wildfire 28-victory amateur career, winning the French and British Opens. She then hit the Ladies Professional Golf Tour like a meteor, winning nine tournaments over the next three years. But injuries cut short Smith's career by the then she reached 24, an age when most pros arc just learning the trade.

Smith feels right at home at Cloverdale. "What's so great is that it has an unintimidating atmosphere, which makes it a perfect place for people to learn golf," she explains. "So many beginners, especially women, are driven away from the sport before they really start, because of glares and harsh words from other players. Pretension has no place here, which makes it a wonderful place to teach."

Cloverdale attracts a diverse mix of players, from loggers to sawmill hands and farmers, even business executives who trek in from Seattle. (The whimsical "dress code" once said "no rubber boots or overalls.") While a fairly forgiving course, it has intricacies that challenge good players, adds Smith, who helped the Witschers with the routing on the back nine.

Dairy farmers who took exceptional care of their herd, the Witschers also are inclined to nurture golfers. There's a warmth at Cloverdale that can't be purchased at any resort. "When I first started playing," says Bob Dunbar, who supervises a local sheet metal fabrication shop, "I kept finding hot coffee and doughnuts sitting on a bench by the fourth hole. At first I thought someone had left them behind. But it was Rick, just bringing treats to regulars."

On a summer evening, from a high-backed wooden chair in front of the clubhouse, one can see in the distance a threesome teeing off on the ninth hole, tiny figures on a piece of land that looks largely untouched by man, save for the 18 red flags that flap in a gentle breeze. While dusk approaches, the players appear unhurried. In fact, they've paused to drink in the emerald surroundings, to savor the same sensations that have engaged golfers for more than 500 years.

Smithsonian April 1997 THE GREENING OF THE GREENS