RTJ II announces Green Proclamation
Robert Trent Jones II announced a new “green” proclamation which includes, “ten tenets that have guided the company’s design philosophy and that the firm commits itself to pursuing into the future”. On the heels of Jones winning of the “best new public course” in Golf Digest’s rankings, this is a pretty hefty PR campaign.
Let’s look at the ten tenants:
- Create courses on sites that will sustain golf with a minimum disturbance to and maximum enhancement of natural ecosystems, and/or rehabilitate degraded landscapes and environments.
- Move earth more efficiently to create courses that fit their sites and respect the natural characteristics of the terrain.
- Design and construct courses with ongoing operations and future maintenance and sustainability in mind.
- Protect native flora and fauna.
- Protect and enhance wildlife habitat and other sensitive environmental areas while providing active corridors for species diversity.
- Minimize clearing of trees and other native vegetation and, where possible, revegetate with indigenous plants from the site.
- Create courses that use less water, pesticides, and fertilizers than traditional courses.
- Protect, conserve, and improve water quality and resources by incorporating wetlands, turfgrass, and other natural site features to clean and filter water.
- Maximize the effectiveness of available water through the use of drought-tolerant grass species; and specify soil amendments that lead to water conservation, and, where applicable, absorb properly-treated effluent.
- Employ new technologies wherever and whenever feasible, that will further these goals.
I’m in total agreement that we need to be looking for ways to “green” golf – it has several benefits that Geoff Shackelford’s recent Golfdom article, “Time for Change”, points out. I even have an entire section dedicated on this website to environmental issues with regards to golf.
However, I’m a little skeptical when it comes to top ten lists and proclamations by architects for a couple of reasons. First, I just don’t see an architect turning down a job because it violates one of these tenants – especially in the current economic climate. Second, there is a lot of hyperbole in these tenants that, while certainly they should be followed, make sense from a financial standpoint. Let’s go one by one.
Create courses on sites that will sustain golf with a minimum disturbance to and maximum enhancement of natural ecosystems, and/or rehabilitate degraded landscapes and environments.
The idea of minimal disturbance has been used by every golf course architect in the world. All of them claim to disturb the minimum amount of land. Of course my definition and your definition of minimal is totally subjective. To a developer building a golf course it’s all about yield for the subidivision, since nearly every new golf course is built with housing these days. (Well, before residential development ceased…) Maximum enhancement of natural ecosystems is far too ambiguous for me to understand. Obviously building golf courses on otherwise degraded environments is going to be a positive.
Move earth more efficiently to create courses that fit their sites and respect the natural characteristics of the terrain.
This is actually very similar to the first tenant. Again, few architects actually preserve the natural characteristics of the terrain. On many sites this just isn’t feasible – which means RTJ II will have to turn projects down if he actually intends to be a true convert. Again, though, this is very ambiguous.
Design and construct courses with ongoing operations and future maintenance and sustainability in mind.
Okay, now we’re getting into something here. Again, pretty ambiguous, though. If a golf course architect, especially one of RTJ II’s experience, is not designing a course with ongoing operations (I’ll let you define that for yourself…), then he hasn’t been doing his job. I wonder if this means going to single, or at most, double row irrigation and not irrigating rough – ever. Or, how about irrigation of greens and tees only? Now that’s keeping sustainability in mind. But what developer is going to accept this? What GOLFER is going to accept this? This would have been a real good one for a little more detail on what sustainability means.
Protect native flora and fauna.
This one definitely wins the most ambiguous award. How do you protect native flora and fauna when you’re disturbing between 80 and 150 acres building a golf course? What’s the point? What if it doesn’t deserve protection? When is it protected and when does it not get protection?
Protect and enhance wildlife habitat and other sensitive environmental areas while providing active corridors for species diversity.
Active corridors for species diversity? What in the world is that? I could understand passive corridors for species diversity because that would essentially mean you leave it alone. (If you’re not familiar with the terms “active” and “passive” when it comes to landscape architecture speak, “passive” means you don’t touch it, “active” means you build something. Think of it like this – 30 acres of passive parkland hasn’t been disturbed by man. 30 acres of active parkland means there are 15 soccer fields and 500 parking spaces on it.) Sensitive environmental areas are already required to be protected by law. I wonder if this means no more stream buffer disturbance or wetland filling on any RTJ II courses?
Minimize clearing of trees and other native vegetation and, where possible, revegetate with indigenous plants from the site.
This is very similar to number 4, except we’re leaving out fauna this time.
Create courses that use less water, pesticides, and fertilizers than traditional courses.
This is very similar to number 3, except we’ve gotten a little more specific. However, a benchmark would be useful here. What are “traditional courses” – something designed by RTJ II’s dad? Use of pesticides and fertilizers is dictated by the super, and of course, the golfers using the course.
Protect, conserve, and improve water quality and resources by incorporating wetlands, turfgrass, and other natural site features to clean and filter water.
This is a good one – incorporation of water quality best management practices is an admirable goal. Many places in the US are going to required treatment of runoff and man made wetlands, biofilters, and other types of runoff treatment devices are a great idea.
Maximize the effectiveness of available water through the use of drought-tolerant grass species; and specify soil amendments that lead to water conservation, and, where applicable, absorb properly-treated effluent.
By far the most detailed of RTJ II’s tenants, this one is also a very good one.
Employ new technologies wherever and whenever feasible, that will further these goals.
Ambiguous at best, I think they were stretching to come up with number 10 and this was thrown in. Obviously you’re going to use the most effective “technology” is you’re employing these goals. They may be new, or they may be old, but they’re likely to be expensive. So, it’s going to come down to whether or not an owner is willing to pay for this.
With the green market catching on, this kind of press release is good public relations. It allows them to provide clients, environmentalists and concerned citizens with tangible evidence of how “green” they are. It’s preemptive too – as land development of any type is more and more challenged by citizens through the approval process (i.e. rezonings, etc.), those architects who can provide this kind of feel good PR are more likely to get what they’re after. That makes as much business sense as it does environmental sense.
wow, this seems more like common knowledge to me and more of a waste of time conjuring up the ten commandments for the public – a future GC archie