Thousands of golf enthusiasts converged
on Olympia Fields Country Club this June to count
bogies, eagles, and birdies as top golfers competed in
the U.S. Open. Just a month earlier, a team of birdwatchers
gathered on the same rolling hills to count birdies, exclusively,
in Audubon International's 2003 North American Birdwatching
Open. All told, Olympia Fields' team spotted 95 species,
including orioles, scarlet tanagers, and 22 different
species of warblers. Under the stewardship of Course Superintendent
Dave Ward, these 350 acres of Chicago Wilderness offer
both premier sporting for humans and an increasingly more
hospitable environment for wildlife.
A Powerful
Drive toward the Green
Olympia Fields is not alone. A growing number of the more
than 300 golf facilities in the metropolitan area are
paying more attention to how the land is managed, according
to Randy Kane, Ph.D., director of turfgrass programs for
the Chicago District Golf Association. Kane estimates
that virtually every golf course has begun to employ at
least some environmentally sensitive management practices,
while as many as 40 percent of all courses have done much
more than that.
"Golf course superintendents
used to do whatever was needed," states Kane. "Now
many really look at their actions in the framework of
their impact on the environment. Many superintendents
consider themselves stewards of the environment."
At these progressive golf courses,
there is less turfgrass, less mowing, less pesticide use,
and less watering. Managers compost grass clippings and
yard waste, recycle oil, and rigorously monitor water
quality. Many native plants find a home on areas that
are out of play, drawing more wildlife around the links.
Improve Your
Game, Improve Your Habitat
Ten years ago, Dave Ward enrolled Olympia Fields in the
Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary Program for Golf Courses
and began working toward
full certification. Among other steps, he invited
Marianne Hahn, former president of the Thorn Creek Audubon
Society, to conduct weekly bird counts for one year in
an initial survey.
"My suburban neighborhood, where
many of my neighbors smother their yards with lawn chemicals,
has nowhere near the bird diversity of Olympia Fields,"
asserts Hahn, whose birdwatching team counted 82 species
in the 2002 Birdwatching Open.
A similar transition took place at
the Village Links in Glen Ellyn. Assistant Golf Course
Superintendent Chris Pekarek admits that when he joined
the course in 1969, "we mowed fence line to fence
line." Pekarek once scoured the entire course for
bird nests and found not one.
A
great blue heron works the pond at Village Links Golf
Course. Photo by Chris Pekarek.
But under the direction of Pekarek
and Course Superintendent Tim Kelly, the Village Links
became the first public course in the nation certified
as an Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary. Over the past decade,
more than 1,200 bluebirds, tree swallows, and wood ducks
combined have fledged there through the Village Links
nest box program. Red-tailed hawks nest on the grounds,
and native plants buffer all 20 ponds. The staff works
at using pesticides and fertilizers sparingly and chooses
from a small list of regulated treatments. Working with
local garden clubs and elementary schools, they conduct
educational and restoration projects such as installing
butterfly gardens at local schools.
Coyote
lounging on the fairway at Village Links. Photo
by Chris Pekarek.
However, while golf courses can be
maintained to provide habitat for some prairie or savanna
species, they offer only limited habitat for animals and
plants that require large blocks of land or can't withstand
human disturbance.
Ken Klick, restoration ecologist for
the Lake County Forest Preserves, notes that golf courses
are inherently not high quality nature preserves. "We're
doing what we can to expand the benefits of our facilities
to the environment," he says." It's a compromise
that has been improved because of the Audubon International
program, the Lake County Forest Preserves' efforts, and
our community education efforts." Like the game of
golf itself, it's a mission of constant improvement.
And despite courses' tendency to favor
common disturbance-tolerant species such as deer and geese,
they can provide the wherewithal to protect certain rare
species. Situated on highly vulnerable and environmentally
sensitive shoreline, Fort Sheridan Golf Course offers
a tantalizing opportunity to reclaim and rehabilitate
a sizeable tract of rare land. Community and conservation
organizations began efforts to preserve the golf course
as well as adjacent shoreline and bluffs for public use
and natural resource protection long before the U.S. Army
decided to vacate Fort Sheridan and transfer the land
to the Lake County Forest Preserves at no cost. Recently,
Lake County voters approved funds for the Forest Preserves
to protect the property's natural resources, improve public
access to Lake Michigan, and restore natural storm water
flows. Golf course revenue will ultimately pay for all
improvements to the course itself, as well as part of
the ongoing natural restoration work.
"These ravines and bluffs are
so rich in natural resources," notes Openlands Project
Associate Director Joyce O'Keefe, citing some of the nine
endangered and threatened plants that have been identified
on site: ground juniper, pale vetchling, small Solomon's
seal, star flower, and Canadian buffaloberry. "This
will be a very expensive project," states O'Keefe,
"but the bottom line is that Lake County Forest Preserves
board members realized that having a golf course on this
site would help pay for the environmental restoration."
Pond-side
plantings at Wilmette Golf Course. Photo
by David Ramsay.
There are limits to how completely
nature can be restored on golf courses. Yet because they
cover such a large area, their continued efforts to be
more natural can help improve the ecological health of
the region. As of 1995, golf courses covered 38,430 acres
across the six Illinois counties immediately surrounding
Chicago, or 1.6 percent of that area, according to the
Northeastern Illinois Planning Commission's (NIPC) most
recent land-use inventory. Golf courses accounted for
nearly 21 percent of total open lands, compared to nearly
17 percent for recreational parks and nearly 62 percent
for natural conservation areas. And from 1990 to 1995,
NIPC data suggests, golf courses represented the fastest-growing
class of open space in the region.
"Golf courses serve an important
function in regional land-use patterns," states Openlands'
O'Keefe. "They provide recreational value, often
in areas where buildings shouldn't occur."
To wit, many courses have been built
along river floodplains. Harbor-side International Golf
Center on Chicago's industrial South Side rests on a former
solid waste landfill that could not be used for industrial,
commercial, or residential development, and Willowhills
Golf Course perches atop a former landfill, making it
the highest point in Northbrook.
Though most land advocates would contest
any new construction of golf courses on natural lands,
some find redeeming value in the courses that exist. "The
fact is, a significant amount of land in the North Branch
watershed is now used as golf courses, and much of that
open space would have been developed as homes," states
John Quail, manager of watershed projects for Friends
of the Chicago River. "Depending on how they are
being managed, golf courses preserve open space that can
serve ecological functions, from filtering water to providing
bird habitat," concludes Quail, who works with local
golf courses and stakeholders to address non-point source
pollution in the North Branch watershed.
Avoiding
Hazards (of Pesticides and Fertilizers)
The practice of applying pesticides and fertilizers to
keep turfgrass green at any cost has long contributed
to the decline of health in our waterways and our wildlife
populations. The Chicago District Golf Association's Kane
estimates that the average golf course may be able to
reduce its use of pesticides and fertilizers by as much
as 30 percent by adopting more sensitive practices.
At golf courses that adhere to "integrated
pest management" techniques, pesticide use is focused
and less frequent. Course superintendents, who often possess
college degrees in forestry, turfgrass management, or
horticulture, monitor their courses to determine if a
turfgrass disease has reached a predetermined threshold
before initiating treatment. "For each condition
or fungus, there is a certain percentage we can tolerate,"
states Tom Morgensen, superintendent of natural resource
and maintenance operations for Lake County Forest Preserves
and former superintendent for Lake County's four public
golf courses. "We use scientific techniques and watch
the weather closely, since many conditions are weather
dependent. If the weather is going to change, we may decide
to do nothing."
The amount and type of chemicals that
a course uses can vary tremendously, depending on factors
such as its size, budget, and level of maintenance. Despite
ThunderHawk's progressive methods, the course still spends
more than 21 percent of its $667,000 annual budget on
pesticides and fertilizers. But the design of a course
can determine how much of this enters local waterways.
According to Morgensen, the ThunderHawk course was "designed
to be cleaner environmentally than many other watersheds."
The course directs water through its ponds, which are
connected by planted wetlands that filter out sediment,
chemicals, and nutrients. According to tests the course
conducts to comply with its Audubon certification, the
water exits the course in better condition than it entered.
And tests have failed to find pesticides in pond water,
wetland soil, or groundwater wells on site.
At Glenview's North Shore Country
Club, which is also Audubon-certified, Course Superintendent
Dan Dinelli stocks his ponds with rainbow trout as living
proof of the overall course health and water quality.
"Everything man does to his environment ends up in
the water," observes Dinelli. "These trout are
our canary in the mine."
As they adopt pest and turf management
procedures, course superintendents have a wealth of techniques
to drawn on. The United States Golf Association (USGA)
has funded more than 225 turfgrass and environmental research
programs, at a cost of more than $21 million, since 1983.
Under its Wildlife Links program, the USGA also funds
research, management, and education projects managed by
the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. While efforts
such as these have not eliminated the use of harmful applications,
they provide new tools for superintendents intent on changing
"business as usual."
Avid golfer Michael Donohue of Orland
Park, Illinois, appreciates the trend toward the "wildlands
look" he has noticed on several courses. Though he
brings binoculars with him to check out the increasingly
more abundant prairie and woodland birds he sees between
shots, Donohue says that most serious golfers remain more
focused on their game than on the savanna just past the
tee. For those closely following the excitement of this
summer's major tournaments, this is easy to understand.
But inspiring more golfers and course managers to revere
habitats as much as handicaps may be the key to the greening
of all the golf courses in Chicago Wilderness.
