Currently, golf courses in Ontario are not effected by the provincial pesticide ban. This does not mean the ban will not reach them in the future. How would golf course superintendents be able to survive without the use of pesticides? How would they be able maintain a golf course that will host championships such as the Canadian Open? Funny enough, the answer to these questions lies with the greenskeeper of the first golf links ever founded on god’s green earth.
Gordon Mckie is the greenskeeper at St. Andrews Old Course 
in Scotland and considered a god in the turf industry. One article explains how pesticides have not been used on the playing surfaces of the Old Course for 17 years. Most of the maintenance practises at St. Andrews are actually done by hand. This includes hand pulling weeds and hand spreading fertilizer. St. Andrews is home to the world’s most prestigess golf tournament, the British Open. Although the Old Course may not be the most beautiful sight to some, it is pristine in the most raw and natural way.
I was absolutely astounded when I read about how St. Andrews has not been treated with pesticides for 17 years! If the oldest and most respected golf facility in the world can survive without pesticides than I believe ours could as well. Golf course superintendents need to start viewing ‘course conditions’ differently. One of Gordon Mckie’s philosophies is that playability should be put above the cosmetic aspect of golf course management. This is the direction all superintendents should take! Is it also a coincidence thats the Old Course is Tiger and Jack’s favourite course?
October 2, 2009 at 11:44 am |
I suppose that if fees are high enough to hire grounds personnel in abundance, grooming can be much more labour intensive and less reliant on assistance from pesticides. But is that practical for most courses? And is raw and natural what most golfers want?
October 18, 2009 at 12:39 pm |
You’ve done a great job on your blog. I really enjoyed reading about the Old Course. You’re a good writer. I like that you took a different angle from most of the other blogs.
I agree with Owen that you could tell the other side of the story a bit. I’m left thinking, why can’t every course do this? I’m sure there’s a reason.
Anne
November 29, 2009 at 4:12 pm |
I enjoyed reading your post and agree that we could do more to reduce our pesticide use on golf courses. However, there are several MAJOR differences between growing turf in North America and growing turf on the links courses on the east coast of Scotland. Here are some of the differences:
1. Golfers. The golfers in the UK and Europe are much more into the playability of the course and not the aesthetics. You pointed this out in your blog, but can you imaging watching The Masters and seeing brown dead turf? Most US/Canadian golfers would not accept it. This is something that will hopefully change.
2. Weather. This should be first on the list. For all of the managers in the UK who think we are nuts with our level of management, I would invite them to manage turf in the mid-Atlantic during the summer months OR in Canada during the winter. It just will not be able to be done without certain help from pesticides.
3. Changing times. Despite the thought that pesticides are not used on golf courses in the UK, they are used. I still don’t think that the Old Course uses pesticides, but they certainly use some chemicals on the other courses that are a part of St. Andrews. For example, they do use Primo and wetting agents.
Overall, all of us are going to have to figure out better ways to manage turf without pesticides, but the higher the level of maintenance gets the more help we will need from certain chemicals. The only alternative is to raise heights and get green speeds back to 7 or 8 instead of the 12-13 expected by many today.
You might find my post on http://www.turfdiseases.blogspot.com interesting (11/30/09).
Anyway, keep up the good work. I am enjoying your and your classmates’ posts.
John Kaminski, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Turfgrass Science
Penn State