Golfers and Environmentalists Are Not Enemies

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about buying and wearing. Shop the entire B Drotty line at Beeche and receive twenty five percent off with our exclusive discount code TFE twenty five. That's B Dradty dot Com TFE two five. So there's this perception out there that golf courses are not good for the environment, that they use too many chemicals, too much energy, and just in general that they're not ecologically beneficial or sustainable. And as a golfer, I've always thought that this perception was

overly simplistic. I look at golf courses and often what I see is not a blight on the environment, but instead wonderful, vital green space that's worth protecting. The problem is, I've never really had specific evidence or research to point to and say, see, golf actually can be a big

contributor to a healthy ecosystem. So I figured, since Earth Day is coming up this Thursday, it's Earthweek, I suppose it was time to bring on someone who really knows this subject, and few people know more about it than Cole Thompson. Cole got his bachelor's, master's, and PhD from Kansas State University, and he's worked as a professor at

the University of Nebraska and cal Poly. These days, he helps direct the USGA Turf, Grass and Environmental Research Program, which provides funding for all kinds of different projects, including ones that have to do with the relationship between golf courses and the environment. In this episode, we dig into a couple of those studies and just generally talk about how to understand what golf courses bring to an ecosystem and how they might be able to bring more. All right,

here's Cole Thompson. 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.

provide the play conditions that they want to provide. And so that was the genesis of the Green Section, and over the years it has evolved and changed in various ways. Around the mid century, the course Consulting Service was founded, and there was a focus on not just conducting research but getting it out to the masses. So that was

a kind of a big turning point. And then later on in the eighties we started the internal kind of focused research being conducted by people in the USJ started to expand, and really that was in the sixties and seventies.

The USJA started funding universities a lot more to do research with scientists at specific universities, and then that has increased even more with the advent of the program that I now manage, the Turf Grass Environmental Research Program that was essentially established in nineteen eighty three, and it's a competitive grant program, a competitive RFP essentially where we have a set of research priorities and we ask university scientists to propose, you know, ways that they think they can

make progress against those priorities. And then with an advisory panel of scientists, you know, I review and select which ones of those we think we should go after support. And then we we kind of work with those scientists for the next few years to get reports on their projects and eventually publish it in the peer review literature, which is an important record and an important review of the science to make sure that the scientists who conducted

the work that their peers approve it. And and that's an important step that we that we think is very important. And so anyway, that's the that's the research program, but the the in how it runs today, the course consulting service is still very much around. At some point the the Green Section record UH was established and it's gone by various names. It's a it's a digital magazine that the USGA circulates anyone can subscribe to. It's freely available,

so that is published twice a month. And then recently we have a tools development team where there are some folks actually working on developing digital tools for they kind of organize a lot of the data that research and science have produced over the years, So that that's kind of a high level overview of the Green Section and in all of our parallel teams and missions that are working towards that common goal of optimizing resource use and playing conditions.

right there. There are many different kind of purposes and objectives that this kind of research might have. What what kind of research or what kinds of research is the USGA particularly interested in funding right now? What are kind of the imperatives?

very basic science, you know, genetics and breeding trying to understand how how plants grow and why grasses respond to different stresses the way they do, all the way to very applied research where there's a very problematic weed or disease or insect that somebody needs how to control, and you know, we want to develop a very specific set of strategies just to control that various best so and everything in between, irrigation management, fertilizer scheduling and management and cultivation,

managing the soil profile which confers a lot of the traits that we appreciate of golf course turf.

research or reason. One of those projects is called the Natural Capital Project. Could you tell me about that?

and how we can leverage that and measure that. And so this group of scientists had an interest in trying to apply that to golf scapes and trying to understand better how golf courses fit into communities and what benefits

they provide, especially in urban communities. And they essentially were they developed a methodology where they can assess and model the basically the services and disservices of golf course provides, right, because it can go both ways, but they were able to quantify, you know, this set of benefits at the start at the starting phase just the golf courses in the metropolitan area of Minneapolis and Saint Paul and basically get an average response for what a golf course, what

benefits it provides or doesn't provide to that community. And when they're using these models, they're basically using data published from previous research that shows, you know, like what a golf course might provide from an urban heat island mitigation standpoint, a temperature mitigation standpoint, from a biodiversity standpoint, or how many nutrients are or are not, you know, leached from the property or run off from the property into the

watershed or nearby streams in the watershed. And so they're able to use all of that data that has been collected over many years and kind of feed it into the background of land use characterizations golf courses or something else, and then how it's managed. And it's basically it comes down to it's a really powerful communication tool because it's a way to organize all of that research and say, you know, based on these parameters, golf courses provide X

compared to some other land use. And that's how they approached it, because you know, golf courses are under a lot of pressure. They're typically set on very valuable lands, or they're you know, unfortunately they might be failing, especially municipal course, and a city might be trying to decide what to do with that golf course. And very often if a golf course is replaced, it becomes a park

or a residential landscape, or even an industrial park. And so, and then the most important comparison I would argue to a golf course is the background natural landscape. Because we can only hope to be as good as the background landscape. That has to be the benchmark. And so they basically compared golf courses to all these other land uses again for a set of services and disservices, and basically showed that the golf courses provide a very similar or better

urban heat island mitigation. So they cool surrounding communities on par with parks and natural areas. They export slightly more nutrients than those naturalized landscapes, but they export less nutrients than residential communities. Right, so they're kind of they provide an intermediate level of service, the researchers would say. And then in terms of pollinator habitat, again they're not quite as good as the natural landscapes, according to this research,

but better than than urban residential landscapes. And so so it's kind of just this way for everybody to wrap their head around, you know, how how a golf course really does plug into a community and what it actually provides rather than rather than guessing.

do we put this? You mentioned the urban heat island. Essentially, cities, cities are hot right because they're you know, they don't have this kind of plant life and natural landscape, and so you know, they generate quite a bit of heat and golf course has helped to lessen that impact a

little bit. So could you talk about what's the importance of that, How can we portray that to the public as something that is an important ecosystem service to use the language of the project that golf courses provide.

off the leaf surfaces and that's a cooling process. It's just like sweat evaporating from your skin. And so that's kind of the I guess the thermodynamics of how it works, right, and why that green space is actually cooler than the city. But the important thing to emphasize is that the benefit of that cooling goes beyond the boundaries of the course.

I don't remember the exact distance away from the golf course that they have found it provides, but but it does provide that service to the to its periphery right to it to a certain distance away from the core of the golf course. And and I mean this can translate to to a couple of important deliverables. I mean one is just lower lower energy use, right if it's if if if you have a cooler ambient environment, it might require less less air conditioning, and so people are

using less energy potentially. And then there's also I mean, especially with some at risk populations, older people or people that have other health challenges. I mean to go to like the really far extreme deaths from from excessive heat, you know, are are an issue, and so there's actually

a human health component there too. And not saying that golf courses saving them in the city are going to save x many lives in a year, but but but there there can be far reaching implications to to this type of effect.

to the environment than an industrial park. I think people are aware of that I think perhaps the more important comparison will be with those natural areas, as you said earlier, and with parks, because those are the you know, for people who are sort of environmentally minded, those are the uses of golf course land that are most often suggested. So if someone's going to go about comparing the environmental benefits of a golf course to say a park, let's

just start with a city park. How would they go about that? How do you think what would be the best way to start thinking that through?

worked into this. And and there are important geographical differences in how landscapes or how golf courses performed to the background natural landscape, you know, think of a desert background natural landscape versus that in Minnesota. So there are differences. But if we just focus for your question on Minnesota and think about what a what a natural or you wanted to look at a park versus a golf course.

So if we just if we just look at a park, you know, armed with this study, a reader can say, well, it's it's it's better or at least similar in terms of cooling a golf course is. But the golf course exports more nitrogen and phosphorus and doesn't provide quite as good of pollinator habitat because that was the proxy that the researchers used for biodiversity in their study. And so at face value, you might look at that and say, well, you know, then the golf course does not have as

much value as the park. But if you look a little bit deeper, you know there's a couple of reasons why those results happen, and one is management. I mean, parks are not managed to the level that golf courses are. Less fertilizer is applied in a year, and so that's essentially why you get a little less runoff or export

of nutrients throughout a year. But all of the research that supports this natural capital modeling effort shows for the most part that nutrients, when applied with proper best management practices on golf courses are really retained to the golf course. It's not very common when applied properly, that a nutrient or even a pesticide would leave the golf course and contaminate a water So even though we see that from the study, we know from the years of research that

that's really not a very large risk. And again we can explain it with differences in management and why the why the model spit that out right. The other thing to consider is, you know, managing managing that park isn't necessarily free either, right, and so so if if this is a municipal golf course, right, we should look at the golf course and kind of kind of flip the script a little bit and think, well, you know, we're

going to invest in a green space, right. People don't expect parks to make money hand over fist, Right, that's just an investment in the community. And at the municipal golf level, if we looked at a golf course the same way, you know, we're we're investing in that green space for the community and if and if the city makes a little money off the golf course, all the better. Well.

You're not, You're spending money on the golfers. And people have certain ideas is about who golfers are that aren't always accurate. But that's another subject. But if you say that we are going to invest in this golf course to naturalize certain areas or to do things to make it more of a benefit to the environment, then I think people can see that those benefits will come to them.

You know, where else do you think this project is going to go in the future and what could it discover?

and San Francisco, California. So the idea is that those are ecoregionally specific and that they could because of their selected strategically, because you could potentially extrapolate the results from each of those locations to a little broader region and start to paint a bigger picture, a more comprehensive picture for the United States. So that's kind of the current step that we're working on. And they're also working on a a few more models that they're incorporating in this

suite of services that they're quantifying. One is a storm water attention. That's another potential benefit for golf courses, as well as carbon sequestration, you know, just by the virtue of growing and sucking carbon dioxide out of the air grasses sequestor that in the soil, and so so that's another benefit. And then they're even looking at some things around around what golf courses provide in terms of home values,

right and some of these economic drivers. And so they're they're kind of organizing you know, these other cities and other modeling initiatives, and and then they're also you know, looking for other opportunities to to continue the work where other cities might be interested in having the analysis done specific to their city. And so there are those types

of opportunities as well. Also talking with the researchers, you know, I know they're they're interested in in some of these kind of mixed mixed use screen space scenario analyses like it.

You know, at this point it's been if it's not a golf course you know, what would it be it's been if not golf and what But I think that you know, I think we all recognize that there's potential to to shift our thinking there a little bit and start to look at you know, more of a spectrum, Like there's obviously different ways that a golf course can exist, and we're seeing that kind of take hold in the US, and it's probably already taken hold outside of the US,

and you know, short courses, and then what can you do with the rest of that space. Could some of that space be a park and some as a golf course? So could the periphery be hiking trails, but then the core is still a golf course. And could you maintain all the ecosystem service benefits by doing that? And so those are some of the some of the interesting frontiers for the research.

often used the term stormwater runoff. But something that I've seen at city golf courses or that I know from you know, talking to people about the history of these places, is that if you see like a golf course in the middle of a city that has some waterways in it, waterways that used to have like not a lot of water when there was as much development around the golf course, and now they do have a lot of water because all of a sudden, there are all these people and

all this development around it. And where is the where is the water going to go? Not just storm water, I suppose, but water generated by the households and you know whatever else that that you know is running into the golf course and filling up these channels a little

bit more. Is that something that you've kind of seen, Is that something that people are looking into as a potential benefit, you know, essentially eating the sins of the development around it, Like the golf courses are there to absorb the effects of kind of, you know, burgeoning civilization around themselves.

the golf course. I don't know of anything specific to that I could see where it would be the case though, I mean you could see where what especially if it's designed where the storm water from a community spills into the golf course, which then goes into their surface retention ponds. I mean, you could see where that could be the case. But I guess the thing I was going to point out is that with the way that they're modeling storm water attention, it's kind of like one hundred year flood events.

So it's one of these big, big flood events. How much water could you retain and prevent destructive flooding to the nearby nearby structures, And so that's that's been their focus because you can imagine, just like you mentioned, if you replace a golf course with all this paced surface in buildings, not only is the water going to get deep right there, but it's going to get deep further out away from the golf course. And so that's that's the approach they're taking.

golf courses, and golf courses can actually get certified through that program. If they're meeting all of these best plans, they can receive a Cooperative Sanctuary certification, which we encourage golf courses to do. And I think it's an important, you know, kind of an environmental stewardship step that golf

courses can take. And there's there's some there's somewhere around a thousand golf courses in the US that have that certification, more that are interacting with the program, but I think around a thousand are certified, and so Monarch's in the Rough is kind of an natural extension of that partnership and of that mindset. You know, the thought is just that there are oh my gosh, I mean, the total acreage of golf courses in the US is actually relatively

small compared to other land uses. If you've ever seen the maps that show like in the US, how many got what what footprint golf courses take up compared to everything else. I mean, it's it's really small. But they're in these cities, right, and so it provides opportunity to provide continuous habitat and basically enhanced habitat continuity for all types of different species, especially when you consider that golf courses.

You know, if it's one hundred and fifty acres on average for an eighteen hole golf course, not all of

that is managed golf course. You know, there's around thirty acres of fairways, five acres of t's, five acres of greens, and so that leaves you, you know, and then maybe thirty acres are rough, but so that leaves you between twenty and fifty acres of area that is not in play essentially, and so those areas are really prime for naturalization, for planting, you know, ecoregionally appropriate plant materials and just

letting them kind of kind of be. And and so that was kind of the thinking behind monarchs and the rough was let's really let's take one. Let's let's use those naturalized areas like we already encourage people to do, but let's let's provide some support for species that is

in decline. And there's estimates that the monarch butterfly populations are eighty or ninety percent decline compared to what they used to be, solely because of a loss of habitat, because of an increase in managed lands in the US. That you know, they're solely relying on a set of species of plants called milkweed, and without those they don't they don't complete their life cycle. And monarchs migrate from

from central Mexico up to Canada every year. It's it's a it's an annual migration, and then they go back, they overwinter in Mexico. And so without that habitat, they don't complete their migration and fewer there's fewer generations and fewer make it back. And so that that was the whole idea behind the project was let's let's provide some habitat for that migration. And so it focused on the Central US initially on that that migration pathway. But you know,

other plant materials are planted besides just milkweed. There are actually you know, flowers planted as well that provide nectar for other pollinators. And so really it's you know, it's called Monarchs in the Rough because we want to we want to raise awareness to the decline of monarch butterflies

and enhance their ability to survive. But really it's an initiative that is continuing to just encourage you know, golf course decision makers to give some of that land for these types of services that can that we can provide.

I mean it was called Wildlife Links and there were you know a number of different species there's a lot of focus on birds, and then there's we've had also focus on bats, right, and we actually have a current project where we're looking at and increasing using something called bat boxes, which is exactly what it sounds like. It's a birdhouse essentially, it's a it's a bathouse on a bat cave, mind you, but.

And I guess I can't list all the species that have been investigated to you, but the focus is what the natural fauna is for that location, you know, and especially if anything's at risk, can we find it on the golf course and how much is the golf course supporting that species?

is really overly simplistic. Golf courses can provide habitats for animals that are struggling to find a home elsewhere. That seems like a really like important message to get out there, because so much of what people here is kind of the opposite.

to that criticism? And you know, where would you go with that conversation?

It's it's we pulled it out as one of our strategic initiatives from kind of sustainable golf management for that exact reason, because it's so important, and so that that would be that would be my starting point, is just acknowledging that that, yes, it is important, and we're also doing all we can to mitigate the effect that the golf courses have on the water supply and that you know, kind of some of the things that people may or may not realize are So there's there's a number of

like current and is a research projects that that we've under taken over the years, and kind of the foundation is plant improvement and plant selection and turf grass breeders at universities have been selecting plants for their drought tolerance for years, and it's kind of this continual, gradual moving of the needle. It's not just like a big switch where all of a sudden we're saving all this water, but plant materials are slowly improving and becoming more drought tolerant.

And then we like to you know, encourage that those species that are drought tolerant and actually require fewer of other resources in many cases, that those are the cultivars and plant materials that people use on their golf courses.

And then there's kind of the angle of precision management, which is, you know, over the years, there's kind of been this change from field based irrigation to water budgeting where you're actually using some of the science we and others have conducted to estimate how much water your golf course is going to need on any given day, and then you apply that amount instead of instead of you know, a a frequency, right, this much irrigation or this many days per week, and so water budgeting has been a

big improvement there. And then you know, we're seeing more increase in the use of soy and moisture sensors. Soil moisture is highly variable across the golf course, right, and so you really do need to monitor it in a in a very with high spatial resolution, and so that's kind of what this the soil moisture sensing approach has taken. And and if if people are on golf courses or work on golf courses, you know, superintendents and their crews

know exactly what we're talking about. And if you've ever seen one of them walking around handwatering greens, they have these soy moisture sensors where they're they're basically gut checking their perception of is this is this spot dry or not? And they stick a meter in the ground and so yet this is or isn't dry, and then decide to apply or not to apply a little bit more water.

So I guess I would say, you know, kind of to sum up, yeah, it's an issue, but there's a whole host of things that we're doing to try to try to make it better and use as little water as possible.

during a specific drought. We see that a lot in the West. But then to increase those naturalized lands just to further reduce the strain on the water supply. And and you know something else that I didn't mention is we've long encouraged golf courses to try to get a hold of recycled water because you know, this is this is water coming from is basically waste water, and it's been retreated and it's unsuitable for human consumption, right, and so it's a it's a good use to use it

on a golf course. And so that's another kind of breeding and management prom to enhance a grasses or a golf course's ability to tolerate that saline irrigation water because it gets it gets it gets a high level of salinity from all the treatment. So that's a you know, another big area of improvement.

So I mentioned tree management, and maybe this is a slightly separate topic, but my understanding, and I don't know if this is the accurate understanding, so you can correct me, But I understanding is when you have a lot of trees with a lot of cultivated turf grass, that that uses a lot of water, that the trees suck up a lot of water, and that that's a bad situation. On the other hand, having trees is beneficial in many ways to the surrounding environment. We all know the benefits

that trees generally bring. And then there's the question of the architecture and the design of the golf course, right and trees. You know, overgrowth of trees can be harmful to the playing characteristics of the golf course. So there are these all these questions around trees, environmental golf course design questions. How does an individual golf course go about deciding what its approach to tree management is in trying to balance all of those considerations.

better or which would use less water. But I think in that case it comes down to trees are are a big investment because you know, especially big trees, the specimen trees that, as you said, can can define a golf course or very importantly maybe providing habitat for some wildlife or just providing shade for somebody that they enjoy, right, And so that doesn't happen overnight, that a tree gets so long that a's large, Right, It takes years, And so I think we have to put it through that,

through that lens, that that trees are a big investment versus a grass that you can more easily establish and turn over in a year if if something's not working out well, and we see this, you know, when there's water restrictions in the West, where you know, communities are

not not just in the West. I mean it happens in other places in the US too, but you'll see, you know, kind of exceptions where somebody may not watering a lawn or a large turf area, but they've got a hose snaked all the way across the lawn to water this large tree because if they don't water, it'll die, and then that could be a big loss from a money value and also just from you know, the services value that for whatever reason, people are enjoying that tree.

So I think that's the starting point is what is the purpose of the tree, right and what's it actually providing? And then how does it or what decisions could actually be made to change that.

trees on golf courses. It's pretty clear that they can bring substantial benefits while carrying, you know, at the extreme end, some big risks well or some big potential harms.

into a structure of person. You know. That's that's something that obviously has to be considered, and it probably what we're we're probably doing, Garrett is is making a good argument for the fact that and and golf course managers do this right, is get a tree inventory with with with an arborist that knows all of these things and and can tell you what the health and value is of your trees and and help you, you know, develop a really good sustainable management plan for them.

that I now manage. And there was even an increase to invested effort in environmental research in the nineties to start to really get at these types of questions and over all over all the years, you know, the decade or two of research again that's included in this ten million dollar figure I fed you earlier that basically what scientists that at universities have have found in different locations is that if you we've defined a set of best

management practices where if you if you apply fertilizers and pesticides in the right way, at the right time of year, at the right rate, you know, when needed, waterm in a little bit afterwards, don't apply him close to water, grow vegetation up near the water, so that you're you know, preventing the likelihood that they even get to the surface. Water, and not before a big rainstorm, so you give them that chance to go through the profile or off into

a surface water. If these types of best management practices are followed. All of this research has pretty clearly shown that it's unlikely, it's a pretty low risk that fertilizers and pesticides are going to move from a golf course into other water features in the watershed. And if they do, they're typically found at levels that are, you know, below

what the EPA would consider acceptable. Kind of the maybe the exception is so phosphorus has been I mean, so nutrients are concerned because they can utrify waters, right, they can decrease the quality of waters, and it's a real concern. The phosphorus is the one that has been found to be more problematic in the turf research. But it's also a nutrient that we don't need to apply a lot of.

There's there tends to be enough in most soils, and so that's what another good recommendation is to you know, only apply that type that that nutrient and anything with phosphorus in it. If your soil test indicates that you're low and very deficient and phosphorus, and then you would just put out a little bit again at the right time of year to kind of get you where you

need to be. And so I think that's something that people probably don't realize is how much effort there has been to try to quantify these types of concerns but also to just really improve the thought that goes into two managing turf, to making sure that we as much as we can, you know, mitigate the risk of these non point source pollution events. Right.

industry's responses to climate change? What are some of the kind of problems and potential solutions that are being worked through right now?

from a resource use standpoint. Right, we almost have to we almost have to deconstruct climate change a little bit and think on a on a practical level, you know, what are these what are these changes going to mean for for a golf course superintendent? And and really when you when you when you look at like the extreme weather events, right, we can we can look at things like like storm water attention and say, okay, that's something that that a golf course could really help us with.

But we also can look at, well, it's getting warmer, it's going to be drier at certain times, and so it's going to be really important to continue to understand and improve the way that we manage golf courses and and and use less water and set them up so that they're very persistent, and that it just it just takes less that we can manage more efficiently in any way that we can, and and and so I think

I think that's one angle. The other angle is the very you know, real opportunity of using renewable energies and paying paying attention to how much energy is being used

on a golf course. And there is an environmental profile series done over comparing it basically a decade timeframe for for a number of different resources, but one was energy use, and we did see some declines and energy use over this ten year period from people using renewable energies and also changing, you know, the way that they manage energy and developing just kind of like an energy management plan and being more thoughtful about the way that they that

they use energy. And then the last kind of angle would be, I guess more ecosystem service type considerations I mentioned earlier that golf courses sequester carbon dioxide, right, which is if you if you follow you know, the climate change consideration or discussions, you know a lot of the concern are our emissions and increasing concentrations of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the environment, and and so plants plants naturally help with that, right where they they

sequester that carbon dioxide and especially grasses in the soil,

and so and so that's important. But then we can also reduce other emissions by by again I mentioned using renewable energies, maybe using maybe we can get to a point where we have electric fleets of mowers and things like that on golf courses where we're using you know, fewer fossil fuels, and also applying you know, just being really efficient with fertilizers and pesticides also has indirect consequences for somebody who's very climate conscious, because you know, it

takes energy to produce those fertilizers, it takes energy to produce those pesticides, and so the less you use, the more efficient you are with them, the lesser need and

the lesser produced. And so it's the life cycle analysis that's really complex and hard to completely explain, but it's important to consider and there's also specific management strategies and considerations where so nitrous oxide is another you know, really harmful greenhouse gas, and it can volatilize from from nitrogenous version fertilizers that are applied, and so selecting applying a small rate, making sure it's watered in, using slow release

sources that aren't prone to that type of loss. You know, all of these are things that can be done to you know, reduce the emissions from from a golf course and reduce the overall footprint. And you know, I guess one last thing is we know that you know, pumping irrigation water actually takes a lot of electricity and some research is showing that that's a big part of the

the energy use on a golf course. And so just you know, goes to show you I guess another another benefit of of drought tolerance and using less water is that you know, will also use less energy in the end.

And so I think all of that work definitely funnels and will continue to help in this arena.

sustainable way. I wanted to touch though, on the role of the golfer here and golfers' attitudes toward their playing surfaces and toward their golf courses in general. What kinds

of shifts in attitudes. Do you think would be helpful for golfers toward their golf courses to allow golf course maintenance people, golf course managers to present golf courses in as environmentally responsible a way as possible, right, because a lot of what superintendents do is responding to golfer desires, and sometimes those golfer desires force superintendents to do things

that they don't want to do necessarily. Sure, and so what can golfers do to kind of adjust their perception of golf courses to help with these issues that we've been talking about.

for imperfect conditions, you know, would help. I mean, can you can see areas where tolerating a few more weeds, or tolerating drought droughty conditions and just letting the golf course be what it's what the environment is providing at that time, especially in areas like you know, maybe we would continue to manage a putting green at a high level, but maybe other areas would would be let go a little bit and so I think I think that type

of acknowledgment and consideration is helpful and and it follows through to naturalized areas as well. You know, we hear a lot that some of the some of the challenges with establishing naturalized areas is they it's not an overnight establishment. It takes a couple of years to get one of these how it's supposed to look, and it takes buy in from from clientele and and so you have to you have to be patient, and so so I think I think just raising awareness about that would be helpful.

And and by and large, when I, you know, I've established some of these way stations on golf courses and or this habitat right, and and when you're out there doing it, people always come over and ask you what you're doing, and and once you explain it, they think

it's cool and they're interested and very supportive. And so I think, you know, to flip it a little bit, I think I think we also as as a golf management community, that's really what we need to do is try to help raise awareness about these exact ques, this exact question that you're asking and saying, you know, explaining what we want and what we would prefer from our perspective, to to tolerate less than perfect conditions if it's really dry, or to tolerate, you know, give us a chance while

this naturalized area is establishing. I think, I think things like that are are really helpful and and when we could go all day on that to some extent where you know, sometimes something like a fungicide is difficult to schedule because you don't want to risk any any damage at all to a golf course. But we've seen from research that some of these application strategies where you withhold an application until you see the first signs of a

disease and then you apply it. They're called threshold based strategies. And if you use those one you're you're in most cases, your your quality is fine. You know, you don't completely lose a putting green or anything, but you use less fungicide in a year, and and then that has all

the associated benefits that we've talked about. And so I think just being aware and acknowledging that that you know, if there are if there are days where something you know, something is caught up to us, to the golf course managers, it's it's not for lack of effort. It's and it's probably that they're they're just just a razor thin line to try to to try to walk to be very sustainable. And so I think maybe patience in a word, would be what would be most helpful.

two apps lutely first rate courses there. To find out more about these events, go to proshop dot thefridagg dot com and click on the events tab at the top. Thanks for listening.