Gary Player - The Legend

Why Brown Is The New Green – Player Design’s Eco-Friendly Mission

May 4, 2010 | Filed Under: General NewsGolf Course Design | Comments: 2   

Eco-friendly is a popular term these days, but what does it really mean?  And how does one be eco-friendly?  For Gary Player Design these two questions are of great importance and have become the central elements in every golf course design project it undertakes.

The great conservationist, Theodore Roosevelt once said “Leave it as it is.  The ages have been at work on it and man can only mar it.”  This is an apt quote to describe
Gary Player’s personal eco-friendly philosophy.  For more than 30 years and over 350 design projects Gary Player Design has utilized sustainable design techniques to create golf courses that respect and pay homage to nature. 

Gary Player Design’s approach is to maintain the inherent characteristics of the land by taking advantage of its natural beauty, features and bio-diversity.  By using native grasses, plants and trees, creating a refuge for local flora and fauna, and using more organic material and fewer potentially dangerous fertilizers and chemicals the land’s natural resources can be preserved.  The second and probably most important aspect to this design approach is water usage.  Water is becoming a slowly, but surely dwindling resource and there are simply more important needs than the watering of golf courses.  This is where the “Brown is the new Green” statement is derived from.  Developers, architects, superintendents and members must all realize that having “brown” on the course is not necessarily a bad thing and in fact, promotes a healthier turf with a solid root structure.  Turf-grasses that are habitually over watered not only produce an inferior playing surface but are also more susceptible to disease, which in turn raises maintenance costs.  By using techniques to harvest and reuse water and planting drought and heat tolerant turf species water usage can be significantly reduced. The environmental and financial costs of maintaining perfectly green golf courses are fast becoming untenable.

The third and least thought about aspect of the eco-friendly design approach is the length of the course.  With the advances in equipment, especially the golf ball, players are hitting it longer and often times making once world-class golf courses vulnerable to technological advances.  Many believe that new courses have to be longer to accommodate the new technology and that the only way to secure a top notch tournament is to have a course of considerable length.  The major flaw to this approach is that longer courses require additional maintenance (water, fertilizers, mowing, etc.) which add to the operational and maintenance costs of the course.  In addition, the chances of hosting a recognizable tournament are slim and the vast majority of the people who play the course are high handicappers who find tour length courses extremely difficult to play.  The most effective solution to this challenge, and one that Gary Player Design is implementing wherever appropriate, is to design a native, low maintenance area between the “Championship Tees” and the tees for the every day, average players.  This allows courses to contain maintenance costs while preserving the option to have the course set up for championship play.

As Player Design continues its push towards more eco-friendly golf courses it hopes to bring this philosophy to the entire design industry.  Golf courses can be gifts to nature where people can go to both play golf and enjoy being at one with the environment.

“Only through our connectedness with nature, do we understand our role as human beings.” – Gary Player

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