A UF researcher wants to make golf courses nationwide more eco-friendly.
The golfing industry is trying to reverse its poor environmental policies. Mark Johnson, associate director of the environmental program with Golf Course Superintendents Association of America, said he put out a proposal request to researchers in order to fix the issue.
He ultimately chose UF because the state of Florida has specific guidelines already laid out for golf course management.
“For many, many years, the golf industry did not communicate what they were doing,” he said.
Bryan Unruh, a UF environmental horticulture professor, said he has worked alongside a team of researchers from other universities to implement change in the industry since 2003.
Through their research, they’ve created a web portal for Florida golf courses that will outline more environmentally friendly practices based off of each golf course’s needs.
This web portal was created to help connect courses with the best management practices and mitigate these environmental misconceptions, Johnson said.
Golf course management can go into the web portal and fill out their course characteristics such as the weather and water drainage. The portal will tailor to the individual needs of their specific courses, their conditions and their constraints.
These outlines “are the shared language between regulation agencies, activists and scientists,” Unruh said.
But Unruh’s manual goes beyond the permit-driven Clean Water Act of 1972, by having whole sections of best management practices in areas such as energy conservation and protecting pollen producers.
Unruh was contracted by the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America in 2015 to bring this manual-creating system to the nation, Unruh said. The system is scheduled to make a nationwide launch this August. The association granted UF $47,358 for the research.
Unruh said his goal is to have a web portal for each state by 2020.
