The average golfer enjoys water about as much as the Wicked Witch of the West in "The Wizard of Oz." Those teeing up at Eisenhower Golf Course, a tree-lined public layout in Crownsville, might have even worse nightmares than the norm.
Thick, native grasses up to 3 feet high surround every creek and pond, reaching toward the sky as though part of a fiendish plot to snag wayward shots.
"I tell the players we have great sales at the pro shop," says course superintendent Mike Papineau in joking reference to the fact that golf courses resell the balls they find in hazards. "Some appreciate it more than others."
It's not that Papineau, a 26-year-old turf specialist, is some kind of golf sadist. No, allowing foliage to grow untouched next to bodies of water aids in establishing root systems that filter out impurities, helping prevent golf course chemicals from entering the surrounding water table.
It's one of many steps Papineau has taken to enhance the eco-friendliness at Eisenhower, one of two courses in Anne Arundel County to be certified as a cooperative sanctuary by the International Audubon Society.
In a sport environmentalists have long scrutinized for its use of chemicals, consumption of water and other issues, groundskeepers have been working hard to reduce the harmful effects of golf courses, and Papineau is an ardent backer of the cause.
"Given our proximity to the Chesapeake Bay, instituting ecologically sound practices is incredibly important," says Papineau, who worked two years to land the honor last August.
Touring the fairways one rainy morning, Papineau pulls his cart over periodically to point out ways in which he and his crew have been turning much of their attention from putting greens to going green. "[This job] isn't just mowing grass and cutting a hole anymore," he says.
Sanctuaries
It doesn't take a Sierra Club expert to note a golf course's potential hazards. The U.S. Golf Association admits that without proper caution, courses can draw too much water, degrade natural areas, worsen stream quality through eroding shorelines and pollute ground water.
"You have to be careful, and it requires knowledge and planning to do [things right]," says Mike Senneca, regional manager for Billy Casper Golf, the company that operates Eisenhower, the Compass Pointe Golf Courses in Pasadena (also an Audubon designee) and 108 others in the United States.
The USGA started backing environmental research as early as 1920, when it established a nonprofit to support studies on everything from weed-resistant grasses to the construction of putting surfaces. But a green golf movement really took root in 1991, when the USGA connected with Audubon International — one of more than 500 independent Audubon Society organizations in the U.S. — to establish the Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary Program for golf courses.
Golf clubs pay the nonprofit educational agency $200 a year for bulky guidebooks with counsel on ecologically sound practices, and if a course makes the grade in six categories — water quality management, chemical use reduction, wildlife and habitat management and more — it can be granted the status of Certified Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary.
More than 2,100 golf courses in 29 countries are members, and more than half, the organization says, have developed an environmental plan. About 500 of America's 16,000 courses have attained the status, 17 of them in Maryland.
"The designation means a lot," says Steve McDonald, president of Turfgrass Disease Solutions, a company that helps courses diagnose and target plant pathogens. "Superintendents must document their practices. It takes a lot of resources and labor. The goal of certification is a great motivator."
The growth of green golf was a happy coincidence for Papineau, a soft-spoken sort who grew up the son of a groundskeeper near Chicago and who always wanted to work on courses. "It's a great job," says Papineau. "It's creative, and I can't complain about being outside all day."
Like most of his colleagues today, he studied turf management in college, including chemistry, plant disease, soil types and even electrical wiring (you have to know how to troubleshoot the computer-guided irrigation systems many courses have). He found work with Virginia-based Casper Company in 2003, superintended two courses and met a few colleagues who had tried the Audubon program. In time, it became corporate policy.
When a chance to move to Maryland arose, he jumped. Upper Midwest courses belong to a uniformly northern climate, calling for certain grasses year-round. The mid-Atlantic's variable nature is a lot more complex. "I like a challenge," he says. He moved to Annapolis in 2008.
Less can be more
If there's a stereotype of an American public course, it's that of a wide-open tract with rock-hard fairways and little tree cover or undergrowth — sort of a parking lot with grass. Such a layout strips native wildlife of their habitat and fails to encourage careful spraying.
The image of top courses, on the other hand, is that of the pristine spread, gleaming emerald and devoid of flaws — so finely manicured it takes lots of chemicals and water to maintain them.
"The prevailing policy … involves treating … turf with hazardous chemical pesticides to obtain picture-perfect standards set by TV tournament broadcasting," according to "Golf at a Crossroads," a brochure recently published by the Rachel Carson Council in Silver Spring.
Eisenhower — the first public course built in Anne Arundel County, dating to 1969 — fits neither template.
As a mist falls one morning, Papineau climbs a hillside in his covered cart and parks beside a retaining wall he and his crew just built. The stacked flagstones and fresh bed of knockout roses have echoes of an English garden. "If I had loved the urban look of Chicago, I'd have stayed there," Papineau says.
A golfer himself, he enjoys a course with a secluded feel, and with its elm- and poplar-lined fairways and no private homes in sight, Eisenhower qualifies. Papineau calls it a personal goal to preserve the beauty of the place.
That includes the typical day-to-day stuff. He arrives with his golden retriever, Rudy, no later than 5:30 each morning to do a 90-minute ride-around, see what happened overnight, identify and water dry spots, squeegee standing water, mow greens, look for signs of disease, remove fallen branches and make the rest of the day's task list for his crew of six before the golfers arrive.
The "green" part of his job is also an integral part of the day.
Much of that involves gathering data. The crew takes frequent water samples, sending them to labs for independent testing (all part of the chemical-reduction component). During the ride-through, Papineau checks which spots need moisture and which don't, and rather than watering indiscriminately, he targets his efforts.
A computerized irrigation system now in wide use gives him remote control of more than 200 sprinkler heads around the course. That helps immensely in reducing water consumption, another category Audubon monitors.
Decades ago, groundskeepers had far fewer pesticides and weed-killers from which to choose. Some, such as chlordane, were so toxic and stayed in the environment so long that they've been banned in the U.S. (Every chemical used today must be approved by the Environmental Protection Agency.)
Today's pros, who must pass frequent state licensing exams, have many more choices, says turf grass expert McDonald, who doubles as an adjunct professor of applied agriculture with the University of Maryland. Those include anthranilic diamides, a new class of chemical that targets biological receptors in insects but not mammals and does nothing to disturb honeybees.
Groundskeepers now refrain from spraying until a certain threshold density is reached (it's a different percentage for each possible pathogen), Papineau adds, and no longer spray when the wind is blowing or the ground is wet.
In some cases, greening calls for doing less. Papineau's crew never mows within three feet of a 4-acre pond or the creeks that flow in and out of it. On a hillside, where a 100-yard space separates two clusters of trees, groundskeepers of yore would have mowed the undergrowth. His crew leaves it, allowing native wildlife such as deer, foxes and wild turkeys to pass through. (Golfers take a one-stroke penalty if they land in the area.)
Canada geese — their presence lessened each morning by a barking Rudy — are one of the species Papineau enters on a log he keeps for Audubon. Cranes and blue herons are also common sights. More than 50 birdhouses around the course attract sparrows, orioles, robins, cardinals and bluebirds.
Like his counterpart at Compass Pointe, Papineau has even spotted a few bald eagles. "If our guests take a moment, there's an awful lot to see," he says.
A trap near the green
To some environmentalists, the notion of a "green" golf course remains an oxymoron as long as chemicals of any kind are used. A California representative of the Sierra Club, Joan Taylor, spoke for them when she told U.S. Water News there's no such thing as an "environmentally friendly" golf course. "Some are just a little less unfriendly," she said.
But there's little doubt programs such as Audubon International's are a help.
Papineau motors across the course, where the native grasses crisscrossing the landscape lend a rough visual texture. Braking now and then to scoop up a stray cup, he stops near one of the blue bins placed near most the tees. Recycling at Eisenhower, part of Anne Arundel County's program, kept 6-1/2 tons of refuse out of landfills last year.
And, near the eighth green, he parks beside a rectangle marked off in white — a small element of the course's campaign to be recertified next year, as it must.
A year ago, he was mystified when half the green turned brown. He'd sprayed, watered and fertilized minimally but correctly, yet a large section of grass had died.
A visit from McDonald told him an unusually harmful new pest, the annual bluegrass weevil, had made an unexpected appearance. The creatures nest in wooded areas and come out to feast on closely mowed turf.
With McDonald's help, he came up with a solution. They laid a length of plastic pipe, slotted from end to end, in the ground. The bugs fall in as they try to migrate, and alcohol preserves them. Papineau checks daily to monitor the population density.
He sprays only once, when the population peaks. The chemical of choice is pyrethroid, which is otherwise used to kill ticks on dogs.
"It's a benign chemical, but it's still a good idea to tie its use to optimal conditions," McDonald says.
As he watches a foursome putt out on the fully recovered green, Papineau calls the trap a hit — by the standards that govern the work of more and more superintendents today.
"We got the best possible control," he says, "with the least impact to the environment."