Hello, and welcome to the Frida Egg Podcast. My name is Garrett Morrison, and today I'm talking about bee keeping and sustainable golf with Parker Anderson. But first, this episode is brought to you by our friends at Precision Pro Golf. Precision Pro is proud to announce its next major advance in golf technology, and that's the ACE Smart Speaker. This is a portable Bluetooth speaker that can read distances to you.
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who runs a company called Greener Golf. Basically, Greener Golf consults with courses about how to use their resources better and how to be more sustainable overall. And Parker's basic message to those courses and to us is that golf can really be a force for good in the environment. It doesn't have to take away, doesn't have to just kind of keep things status quo. It can actually offer benefits.
And one of those benefits involves bees, which Parker and I will definitely talk about, So one more thing before we get into it. In addition to all the other stuff he's done, Parker was a founding member of the band iration Fablo, and he's close friends with the lead singer of that band, Micah Pouschelle, who sometimes goes by Posh. Micah is a big time golf tragic, well known in the golf community, and when Parker refers to Posh at the beginning of our interview, that's what he's talking about.
All right, let's do it. I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset.
When I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset. And when I find my ball in a.
Bride egg Frida egg, the dreaded Frida egg Frida egg Frida egg, Brian egg Frida egg bride egg Lie, I'm about ready to run off the golf course. You grew up in Hawaii, Yeah, we did. You just let Hawaii for a while.
Live in Hawaii for a while. So I was there from like in middle school through high school, and that's kind of how I know, poosh. We we kind of grew up together some pretty formative years there with with Micah and a lot of the guys from the band Iration. We all ended up in Santa Barbara together and kind of started that band up, which was a lot of fun.
But Hawaii's a really special spot for me. I was the tournament director for the Hawaii State Junior Golf Association for a couple of years, which was great experience, and got to play a lot of golf in Hawaii, which is always always a good treat. We're actually heading back to Hawaii on January first for about six weeks, so I'm really excited about that.
Good time of your to do it.
I know, man, it's great, all right, Well, why.
Don't we dig into the topic. There's many things that I could talk about with you, Like, there's any number of things. You've got a fascinating resume, and you and I have some places in common even that we could probably chat about. Yeah, maybe people wouldn't be as interested in that as the work that you're doing, and that work centers on sustainability and golf. Now, I was going to open with some questions about bees and bee keeping and that idea on golf courses, and we'll get to that,
for sure, we'll tell that story. But there was an article that came out this week on cnn dot com that discussed golf and the environment and ended up getting passed around a lot on the internet. You know. It's an interesting article in the sense that the SoundBite from it, the quote that's going to get reprinted and redistributed, is the line golf is a dirty sport that's wrecking the planet, but it doesn't have to be. So there's that line
in the article. But then the article kind of goes on to discuss golf in the environment, the challenges that it's facing right now, and some of the things that golf architects and golf course superintendents are doing to try to improve things, and so that the article doesn't really
follow up on that opening proclamation. But in any case, so I guess what I wanted to ask you about was if somebody didn't know anything about golf in the environment and just read that article, what would you want that person to know?
I mean, it's it's a common theme these these articles that I've I've received a lot of them, and it's come into many forms. And and when I started reading it with with like that tagline that you mentioned of golf as a dirty sport that's wrecking the planet, and I was like, oh, here we go again. You know, this is just another one of these bashing golf kind
of articles. And like you said, it does follow up with some examples, some case studies of carbon sequestration, of a lot of a lot of positives that that are happening in the golf and some some case studies, and but a lot of it is from Europe. You know, there's a lot of examples in Europe and Iceland, some really cool stuff happening in Iceland, which is fascinating. Surprisingly,
you know, surprisingly, golf in Iceland. But there's some great, great examples there really really progressive approach to how golf impacts the environment. And I think that's something that I think the golf industry in general is very, very bad at of describing the value of golf, especially to non golfers.
And what what the challenge that I face a lot is is there's a there's a big stigma already, you know, set in our society that golf courses are these these wasteful elitists kind of land like high fence, high walls, land uses that are inaccessible, that have a history of you know, closing their gates to to many people. And you know, I think some of it is justified. And but I think to to make generalizations that golf is a dirty sport, you know, and it's and it's wrecking
the planet is is kind of an oversimplification. There's there's a there's fifteen thousand golf courses about approximately in the US, and some are doing really incredible things, and some are having a challenge with with what we're facing with with this climate catastrophe and and how do you how do
we survive that? So there's some really we're kind of at a really critical time in the history of our our species, but also our industry, and when when there's this battle of golfers, you know, kind of seeing this dynamic of golf against the environment, there's kind of this trade off often where you know, this has kind of been the norm in our industry, is like if if we have to be more environmental, better environmental stewards, then we have to give up something else. And I don't
see it that way. I think that's kind of a thing of the past, where sustainability and focusing on environmental initiatives and and kind of going beyond sustainability really of using golf courses as these regenerative spaces and and really provide a lot of value to community. You know, that's a possibility, and the courses that are kind of a demonstrating that right now. But I think the article really touches on a point that there's a stigma around golf,
especially to the non golfer. You know, most most people experience golf from a I'm just driving by this fenced off area and I see the irrigation going off, and I don't see a single soul out there, So what a waste of land there's a California Assembly bill that's been proposed recently AB six seventy two, and it's basically a proposal to turn a lot of public golf courses into affordable housing. And you know, I'm all for affordable housing.
I think you know, we were just talking about the challenge of living in California and I need some affordable housing. But there's I think there's there's better ways to do it. I mean, golf courses often in these urban areas, are these last remaining green spaces that provide a significant value to those communities that, like I said, golf were not very good at telling that story, especially to non golfers.
And that's a lot of what my work involves is saying this land use provides this list of ecosystem services to this community. And so you know, what I'm saying is we need to be able to describe the value of a golf course other than just monetary value. And that's where the difficult work comes into play.
And you know, part of this is a pr project in a sense that in that CNN article, there was an easy opportunity for the writer or the writers to say golf is a dirty sport. And it's wrecking the planet. And a lot of readers will simply sort of accept that because that is an established narrative that people are familiar with, as sort of oversimplified or even erroneous as
it might be. And so part of the project is to combat that, to put a different story out there and give people access to that so they have the ability to say, actually, I don't know if I really believe that line of the article. So that's maybe one thing. But another thing is working with golf courses to improve the environmental services that they provide. Your company, Greener Golf does a lot of this kind of work, and specifically, one that's really fun to talk about is the bee
keeping work that you do. And so maybe we could just start by talking about bees in general, because I think a lot of people sort of avoid bees. Their main relationship with bees is please don't sting me, or please get out of my food or whatever. But tell me about your interest in bees and how that came about.
Yeah, well, my interest in bees goes way back, and so does my experience in golf, and so it's a it's been a great I'm very grateful for the ability to combine those two passions together. You know, the more I learn about bees and I can you need to learn about bees even though I've been a beekeeper for about fifteen years, is there really incredible creatures, really selfless. They kind of operate on this for the greater good model and they just work tirelessly for the greater good
of their colony. And I think that's an incredible lesson to be learned right off the bat. And then pollinators, especially honey bees, really are the backbone of our agricultural systems. They provide pollination services for over a third of the food that we eat, So basically every one out of three bites that you're consuming is thanks to a honey bee and its pollination, and so they're very important for our agriculture. The problem is that we're experiencing significant die
offs of colonies every year. So basically a beekeeper will experience thirty to fifty percent of their colonies will die every year. So a lot of the work of a bee keeper is really recovering your losses and then trying to re strengthen your colonies. And so, like I said earlier, at a very critical time in the history of our species of the planet, and bees play a really critical part in that. And how it relates to golf is that bees are on golf courses already. They find water,
they're looking for flowers. There's trees that have flowers, there's out of play areas that have flowers. So they're foraging on golf courses already. They're looking for places to live. But the human honeybeat interaction is not always positive on a golf course, as you know. And so for example, at goat Hill Park in Oceanside, great little facility that I love to spend time at, we have a great
beekeeping program down there. And how it started was I was playing in the Herdsman, which is a two man best ball two day event, which is a blast. But we're playing and there's there's I'm just looking around. There's bees and irrigation boxes. There's a swarm that's hanging from a tree like right next to the cart path, and there's just bees everywhere, which is you know, it's it's great showing that bees are healthy in that area, but
it but it I was like this. I talked to John Ashworth and I said, John, this is a a liability. There's you know, people are getting stung and let's do something about this, and so he was really supportive. He loves the bees, and so we started. Basically, my work was to capture all of these colonies, relocate them to a safe spot, and and create this ap area that's
dedicated to the bees. So we can kind of keep the bees in their separate corner and keep the golfers in their separate corners, and everyone's happy and and that's been a really positive story for the bees. Additionally, you know, bees require forage, and you've got this giant irrigated landscape
a golf course. Uh. I think the average size of a golf course is about one hundred and fifty acres, and on average, sixty percent of that acreage is managed for turf for play, So you've got forty percent of that one hundred and fifty acres is kind of underutilized space.
So a lot of a lot of my work at Greener Golf is really finding alternative uses value added you know, programming for those spaces, and a lot of it is creating pollender habitat areas or depending on the region, you know, stormwater catchment basins, or just adding a lot of a lot of features into these underutilized spaces, and so at Go Hill we have a huge kind of pollender habitat area where we're kind of taking more and more areas and dedicating them to growing flowers to support the bees
because they really need a constant forage source. Kind of tied all in is is sustainability, and quantifying sustainability is really challenging. There's so many factors. I think at the University of Minnesota, I tried to capture like every measurable factor and it was close to a thousand metrics that you would have to quantify in order to really assess what your sustainability level is. And that's that's a lot
of time. You know, golf course superintendents don't have extra time, and so so trying to accomplish that was a big challenge. So what's great about bees, in my opinion, is that bees are what's called an indicator species, meaning if they're healthy and present in a location, it indicates that that area or that ecosystem is healthy. So if you have healthy bees, that basically translates to a healthy ecosystem. So it's basically a shorthand way of saying, we have healthy
bees here. So therefore, this golf course is sustainable. And it's it's a very easy kind of shorthand way to not have to go through measuring a thousand different factors. But it's it's kind of it's a start, i'd say, a start to demonstrating that a golf course is sustainable by having bees. I call them the trojan horse of sustainability because there's just so many kind of additional or indirect benefits that having bees really results in.
And when you say a trojan horse for sustainability in golf, what comes to mind for me is just introducing the concept to golf courses through a bee keeping program that you can use your out of play areas in different ways, right, because there's a number of things that you could do with out of play areas, not just bee keeping. So what are what are some of those additional possibilities that you've thought about or that you've seen.
I mean, bees are one component of it. Pollinators, We really rely on pollinators. But what I like to consider is what we call stacking functions. So how can you get the most the most value out of a space. So stacking functions would be something like, all right, we've identified this area, we're gonna create a stormwater catchment basin or retention basin where when it rains, it'll fill with water.
So we're going to capture water on site. But also those plants there, we're gonna grow some plants that are also beneficial to pollinators. Maybe there's some some plants there that are harvestables as a form of agriculture, so we have some additional value there of creating some food for humans. And those spaces then have a lot more value than just kind of keeping it out of sight, out of mind and just letting it, letting it do its thing.
There's a little a little bit more i'd say grunt work on the front end to to start those programs and initiatives, but once they get rolling, and really the design is key of how do you design this space so that it kind of perpetuates itself, that you that you don't have to spend a lot of time on it, but it also provides all these values. So those those types of considerations are what kind of goes through that process.
Yeah, I mean, I've noticed that a lot of golf courses put maintenance effort into their out of play areas and so just not really having to do that as much anymore would potentially free some things up. But you know, this is you're describing the bee keeping program at at
Goatthill Park. Goatthill Park is, as you alluded to, is a unique place with a wonderful culture headed up by John Ashworth, who currently runs the Linksoul brand, but is also familiar to golfers through the Ashworth brand, which came before that, and they you know, there was a community effort to save that golf course and ever since then it's been this place of kind of experimentation. And so you could argue that Goatthill Park is uniquely well situated
to accept an idea like a beekeeping program. Like if I were to guess any American golf course that would be most receptive to an idea like this, I would probably say Goatthill Park, right, that would be my guess, which is a wonderful thing for Goathill Park really, But at other kinds of golf courses you're going to run into a little more trouble in getting them to adopt things like this, And so how do you negotiate that diplomacy?
Good question. So there's obviously a variety in the character of clubs. Goat Hill, as we recognize, is a unique case, but I've worked with the University of Michigan golf courses both have strong beekeeping programs. The Valley Club of Montecito has a really strong beekeeping program, and the primary cause of that, or the start of that was basically to mitigate the relationship and kind of coordinate the relationship between
humans and honey bees, golfers and honeybees. Because there's a lot of these golf courses, are these like bee banks where there's bees there, there's a lot of bees on these properties. How can you safely navigate and manage that relationship where you don't want to swarm or a colony
to move in right next to tea box? So how do you safely capture or kind of relocate these these colonies to a space that you can really be an environmental steward, a steward of these colonies and really support the local honeybee population, but also provide safety for for your membership. The superintendent at the Valley Club, Kevin O'Connor,
is really supportive of the of the program. He loves the bees and always asking questions about him, and uh, but I think the membership, you know, the membership really is supportive of it as well. And and I think a lot of the members recognize that the honey bees are a valuable part of our ecosystem and we need to support them. Another benefit, though, is which is which is a challenge for me sometimes is keeping up with the demand for for honey. I mean everyone is always
asking when is the when is the honey harvest? And uh, it's you know, I'm a beekeeper primarily for the benefit of the bees. I'm trying to strengthen and support honeybee populations and other pollinators, and so I'm not trying to push them too hard to capture a lot of honey. But occasionally they'll have a surplus and I'll be able to get some and hopefully that satisfies the demand a little bit.
But do you have jars that you hand out and stuff?
Yeah, I mean, as part of my contracts with these clients is any honey surplus that is gathered is belongs to the club. And so there is a harvest at Goat Hill And I just gave you know, thirty jars to John and he gave them out to his staff to each member of his staff got a little three ounce jar with a goat Hill honey on it and had a Keyr code on the top that links to my website that has a lot of information of why
bees are important. And he gave that out as a gift to sell it right the seventh anniversary of Goat Hill. And I think that little gifts really connected a lot of the employees to the golf course and they recognize the value of the bee keeping program and and really they recognize that that Goat Hill is a benefit to the to the ecosystem. We're not swimming in honey. It's
not like a big honey production operation or anything. We're just I'm just trying to keep the bees healthy and keep golfers healthy as well.
It's a it's a side benefit.
Yeah.
Probably pretty delicious too. I mean it's amazing, Like truly organic honey is is another another animal so to speak, from from the stuff you get at the grocery store.
Yeah, the local, locally sourced honey. See, it's seasonal, so it'll taste different during different times of the year. And it's really thought to be really good for for allergies and because it has the local pollen in it. That's that's processed by the bees a little bit. So yeah, it's a hot commodity.
That's cool.
Yeah.
So let's talk a little more generally about sustainability and how you define it. You have a working definition of sustainability in golf. Could you tell me about that, just so we can kind of root ourselves and what we're talking about when we say sustainability, because it's such a buzzword now, but it does actually mean.
Something that's a challenge in and of itself, is defining sustainability. So the United Nations has a definition. It's meeting the meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. And that's I think that's reasonable. I prefer a few alternatives. One is basically the kind of the outdoor motto of leave it better than you found it, so basically as it
applies to golfers, fixed two ball marks. When you make one, you know the golf course is better off because of it. But really the definition and the practice that I really identify with is basically the First Nations approach of reciprocity.
So basically, whatever you give, you know, we're given air, water, nourishment from the earth, and we're connected to the earth, and I think that's something that we're constantly, unfortunately getting farther and farther away from, is our connection to the Earth. And I think golf is a great way to re establish some of those connections with our kinship with with
the environment. So so the idea of reciprocity of you know, we're we're given a great gift to be out in the in these outdoors, and how how can we support these ecosystems. We're not we're not taking from these ecosystems, so we're not separate from them. We're reuniting with the the ecosystem through golf and through the management of this course, and that really provides a lot of value, not just
to the individual. Provides a lot of value to the individual golfer, you know, being outdoors and engaging with nature, the mental health aspects of it, but the non golfer, the person that is just close to that space really provide gets a lot of value from that golf course as well. And so that's something I really consider, Like you mentioned that defining sustainability is a challenge in and of itself, and we have a hard time defining it,
and then we have a hard time quantifying it. But I think golf courses now are trying to be more sustainable, and I think that word more it needs to go. I mean, we're trying to be I see a future where we're beyond sustainable, where we're really regenerating these ecosystems and supporting ecosystems rather than kind of these net zero approaches. We're at a point where I think golf courses can really be a regenerative and beyond sustainable land use.
Now, so what are some of the specific ways in which golf courses can do this? So we talked about pollinator habitats. What are some other ecosystem services or or ways in which golf courses can have a regenerative effect as opposed to taking away something or just keeping it kind of level.
Yeah, And so there's a whole whole list of sustainability metrics and initiatives and things that a golf course can engage in. I think that changes based on the region. For example, in California, water quantity is like the biggest issue, so using reclaimed water or using less water, having very firm and fast conditions which are fun. You know, it's a little browner maybe, but you know, I think that's something that golfers need to be need to accept and understand.
So California water quantity is an issue, whereas in the Midwest, wanter water quality is a big issue. So, you know, with regards to sustainability, there's economic sustainability, there's the environmental sustainability kind of community engagement, but also golfer experience is a big part of sustainability. How do you enhance the
golf for experience. I think education and integrating a lot of educational opportunities on the golf courses and really highlighting what a golf course is rather than just a recreational space. Two golfers is a value. But to kind of go back to your question, that kind of went on a tangent there, But basically, we're looking at air quality, carbon sequestration, we're looking at soil health. Carbon sequestration of soils is a tremendous opportunity there. Having healthy soils will retain a
lot of carbon. If you have healthy soils, then you have healthy turf, and you have you can use less water and less chemicals and so there's a lot of They're all connected in ways, but I think looking at each golf course as a unique land use is necessary in order to figure out which which sustainability initiatives are our best there. And I think the part of sustainability
that is often overlooked. And you know, we we're looking at environmental issues all the time, but there's there's things about like accessibility and environmental justice of these land uses. How do we get more people on them, how do we get a population of golfers that's representative of the population of these communities, And how do we use golf as a tool to promote positive social change and community engagement and and and a positive future. Those are big issues.
There's you know, agriculture is a huge one. I spend some time as the campus farm manager at the University of Michigan, and I just love gardening and farming and growing my own food. And you know, bees are a big part of that. And you know, golf courses are these giant irrigated spaces, So why don't we like plant some some veggies around and and really utilize those spaces as as these kind of local food movements are are really starting to take hold. So there's a whole list
of opportunities there. And I think, like I said, every golf course has a unique ecosystem and a unique community that it's a part of, and so it kind of requires a very deep dive into what is existing here. You know, we talk a lot about the future, but
we really don't know where we stand. So I think really doing a lot of data collection and understanding where the golf course is, how much water it uses, and just really doing a baseline assessment of this is where we this is where we are now that that gives you a really strong position to make a change and then measure that change. And then that measurement of change, you know, that positive change really then results in a really powerful story of this value of this golf course.
And this is what you call the Greener golf index, right that your way of measuring how how sustainable a golf course is or what it adds as opposed to what it takes away.
Yeah, so the Greener Golf Index, as you mentioned, is is an attempt at a holistic measurement of the sustainability of a golf course. I say attempt just because I mentioned there's over one thousand different measurable factors that go into the management of a course, and so it captures information from the economics, the environment, the community, and the
golfer experience. And so what we're trying to do is maximize the impacts of those and so finding the key factors of each of those kind of silos kind of goes into this algorithm where the concept is that you have a score that you can then have a baseline assessment and say, okay, here's where we stand. Now we're
going to do these interventions. Now we're going to measure again, and then we have that delta that we can then you know, use as a kind of a positive story of of of a of a change and the impact. Really measuring the impact is is is what this this tool is designed to do.
Would this member would this measurement sometimes discover things that are not so great about what a golf course is doing.
Yeah, and that's that's a great question because there's a belief by by some in the industry that if you if you don't measure it, it doesn't exist. Right of you know, if you start measuring something, then reliable for for whatever that issue is. And so with regard to like products and different chemicals and so forth. He used. There's a thing called the environmental in UH. Let's see
the Environmental Impact Quotient, which was developed by Cornell University. UH. You know, shout out to doctor Frank Rossi out there. He's doing some amazing work with golf. They developed this this uh database of any product or chemical you would use for for a golf course, and it gives you a score similar to the Greener Golf Index, and then you can find alternatives for that product that are that are better for the bees, better for the watershed, and
so forth. But that's that is a big challenge is starting that journey of collecting data. So there's a lot of a lot of hesitancy I would say by some some golf course operators to to capture some of that data because they see that it could potentially result in a, you know, some sort of liability down the road.
So let's get specific about what this could look like, what this kind of work could look like at a particular course. You did your I think your master's thesis work at the University of Michigan golf courses, one of which is the U of M Golf Course, which is an Alistair McKenzie design that actually Andy and I talked about in our last episode of the podcast. It's really cool golf course. And then there's Ragick Farms, which is
a peat Die course from the mid sixties. I believe it's sort of early in his career, one of his early projects. You did. You did a ton of work at these golf courses as you were researching your thesis, and in fact did some projects at these courses, and so could you tell me about those and you know what kind of specific measures you took to increase the sustainability of them.
Yeah, both great golf courses. I recognized in my golf career. I was a club pro for a while, I was a junior golf tournament director for a while and really just kind of tried a lot of wre many hats in the industry.
Yeah, well, you're one of those rare people who is part of the PGA as well as the GCSAA, so the main Professionals Association as well as the main uh you know, Greenkeepers Association.
Exactly. There's not there's not a lot of overlap, and I'm happy to be involved with both organizations. And I recognized in my career that you know, the golf has this great opportunity to be a better steward of the environment. So I chose to go to grad school to really focus on, you know, exploring that and really studying that and finding that opportunity. And I chose University of Michigan because it has a strong landscape architecture program, which Mike
Deries went through he's a Michigan guy. And I also got a so I got a master's of Landscape architecture there, but also a Master of Science in sustainable systems. So it was one of those programs that you're able to have a very strong science background but also really focus on kind of the art and design and and and get deep into the landscape side of things. So that that was a really valuable experience. And I went specifically to focus on golf, and going to an environmental school
focusing on golf was a was an eye opener. I mean, I got a lot of confrontation early, and luckily I was able to have a lot of great conversations with with some incredible people, really smart people that are focusing on different aspects of sustainability and environmental justice and so forth, and and have some difficult conversations, and I'm I'm grateful to have turned some perceptions onto the more positive side
of golf. But to focus on the University of Michigan golf course, which is also known as the Blue Course and Alistair McKenzie Course, it's a it's an amazing, amazing track and and I remember a great memory is, uh, Saturday is a big Michigan football game, and then Sunday they had the uh, you know, tailgating everywhere on the
golf course. And then Sunday was the they have a student club championship and so like it was right after sure the tailgating, and so you know, he hit a ball out of out of play and you're like, you know, there's beer cans or something like that. It's incredible. How how good of a job they do at going from tailgate to playability. I don't know how they do it,
but it's it's pretty incredible. And the course is in really good shape but a really historically important and a really great design, and it's accessible to students, really fantastic piece of property. And it's right next to the Big House,
which is which is a lot of fun. And then Raderick Farms is like you said, a Pete Die course, and it was Pete Dies, Pete and Alice Dies first eighteen hole design, but it wasn't built until after they've they've finished a few other courses, but it's part of this big property that was donated to the university by Frederick Mathey and he they started the botanical gardens there.
There's a big forest there. Luckily for me, they have this caretaker program there where if you're a graduate student in back then it was called the School of Natural Resources and Environment now it's the School of Environment and Sustainability, getting getting that buzzword in there, you know, rebranded. But if you're a student at this school, there's opportunities for free housing in exchange for being a caretaker of this property.
And so I worked ten hours a week on the golf course, either Maaian Green's or you know, doing whatever. And I lived on property in this old farmhouse and it was an incredible four years there. And part of my master's project was to design a little little part three course called the Gateway course, kind of the gateway
to sustainability. It's also at the gateway of rad Wick Farms, and you know, we're still in discussions of potentially building that, which is a lot of a lot of fun, and that property is is just a really special place to me and it's a great resource for the university.
The farmhouse that you were living in, was that meant for habitation.
At one point? It was, yeah, I mean it was a little it was a little rundown, but you know, it had a fireplace at one point that they then decided it wasn't a good idea to let graduate students just have fires in an old building. So you know, that was that was a graduate.
Students typically live there. Was that like a place that often you would find graduate students through time.
Well, so originally it was the the house of the general manager, and then it was kind of vacated for a long period of time. And then this is pretty lucky for me, is the year that I started at Michigan, they started a caretaker program there, so I was one of the first caretakers there. But they've continued that program since I've been there, So graduate students still live there and it's you I've been there to visit a few times and it's still standing and it's a beautiful old
you know, kind of white farmhouse. But it's got it's you know, it's it's aged a little bit, but the price is right, you know, it's it's ten hours ten hours of greens mowing a week. Is is is worth it?
Yeah? All right? So the Gateway course, what projects would be part of that course that would help in the drive toward sustainability? Do you think if if that course were built?
Yeah, So having a little kind of laboratory for golf is, if you can imagine, would be a great benefit to a golf course because you can really explore and experiment with different turf species, different irrigation strategies, different nutrient cycles and so forth, and you can you can experiment on this on this little course before you you put it out on the on the big course. And so also there's you know, so that's that's one component of it.
Also there's, uh, the challenge of getting new players into the game. So signing up for a tea time and playing eighteen holes is a very intimidating thing for a new golfer. And so if you had a space where you could you kind of learn learn the ropes a little bit and figure out how to play what's the flow of around, even if it's on a short, little nine hole part three course. You know, you kind of get the feel of playing around of golf and then
you can take the next step. So it's a it's a gateway to golf as well as a sustainability and just having a place for for fun. You know how popular you guys were just up at Bandon Dunes, right And I don't know if you play the Preserve or not.
That way, you didn't play the Preserve, and people have been giving us a hard time rightfully, so that we didn't. But I have played the Preserve. I have. I have been out there and played for sure.
Well you know that that's that's the often the highlight of people's trips is playing the Preserve because it's unique and it's like a more of a it cultivates this level of play, like the playground at Goat Hill it's a short, little three hole course it's for kids, and or the punch bowl at Bandon Dunes as well. I've seen, like I have this memory of these these older guys on abandoned trip just laughing like little boys on the punch bowl and running around and just having a blast.
And those different models of golf. I think really enhance you know, the big golf, like the eighteen hole rounds and so forth. So having a little little space to experiment and show to people and get new people involved and try new things and have bees and grow some food and have a lot of laughs, just making a fun experience. I think having more spaces like that is really valuable for the game.
Yeah, and you know, I've thought of short courses often as being spaces of experimentation for architecture too, because at courses like the Preserve or the Sandbox at Sand Valley, architects can try more daring ideas than they could on a full eighteen hole course, because for whatever reason, when golfers play a short course, they are primed to accept
weird stuff. You know, it's okay if there's like a super crazy green, or if there's an eighty yard hole that's completely blind, Whereas if they saw that on a big course, they might say, oh that's gimmicky, Oh that doesn't have any place here. On a short course, they're more like, oh, this is fun, and so they're in more of a kind of accepting frame of mind. And I guess the same could be true of maintenance. Yeah.
Absolutely, having a place to test things out and play around with architecture, with management, and with just getting people involved in golf is of I think of great value for a space like Raddick Farms and being affiliated with the university too really pride, you know, Michigan really prides itself on being the leaders and best in all these these activities and having having a place where you can really use that space to get people involved in golf
and benefit the community. There's it's just kind of a win win win situation there, and I hope we move forward with it sometime soon.
Thank you so much for talking to me, Parker, and good luck with your with your ventures. This episode was edited by Meg Atkins. Thank you, Meg, and if you want to learn more about Parker Anderson's work and his company, Greener Golf, you can go to Greener dot golf. Thanks for listening.