"What Jeff (Brauer) has conceived amidst deep pits and squeezed among high piles is as fine a set of golf holes as has been produced thus far in the 21st Century."

"It is already hands-down the finest course in Minnesota."

In golf course renovation, this advice often collides. Historically, master plans for phased renovation were nearly universal, in an effort to keep courses open, and avoid large expenses and debt, except when required by disasters like floods. We have learned that avoiding those things leads to other renovation problems, and I usually recommend any course needing renovation and with the ability to borrow to accomplish as much as they can immediately.

You avoid many problems by adopting a single-year renovation program and those are becoming more common. Architecturally, a single -year plan achieves consistency in:

• Design. An architect's style changes - assuming the club uses the same architect over the long haul.
• Construction. Different contractors have different shaping and construction techniques. Using one allows all holes to look and function the same.
• Play. Older USGA greens play differently than newer ones. Suppliers go out of business, so you may not get the same material for greens mix or bunker sand.
• Maintenance. All of the above contribute to annual cost savings from not having separate maintenance regimens for every hole.

Image wise, short-term programs avoid or minimize problems of:

• Resentment towards continuing golf course disruption.
• Direction Changes. (See Design Consistency)
• Lost Momentum, when politics, costs, and hassle stop a project, leaving several long-standing problems, and some new, out-of-place architectural features in place.

Financial advantages of renovating completely include:

• Better Construction Value. One new USGA green complex costs $70,000, while several may cost $45,000 each. The contractor's mobilization and supervision expenses, for example, are about the same whether building one green or 18, so large projects get economy of scale.
• Combine these economies of scale and current low interest rates, and the annual interest cost of a large project may not be significantly higher than paying for individual projects. Closing the course completely avoids miscellaneous costs like erecting safety barriers, temporary greens and high maintenance for undisturbed holes.
• Better Architectural Value Fees. Architects can review many holes as easily as one during design or construction evaluation, and usually have similar economies of scale. You are more likely to attract a top architect with a bigger project, which should also get better results.
• Less Lost Revenue. Clubs doing a few holes annually often find that auxiliary revenue declines significantly, while employee costs remain the same, because golfers stop using the club and sometimes give up their memberships. Clubs doing all renovations at once have been creative at arranging alternate play venues and making the "lost year" of play a unique experience for members.

When counting lost revenues and costs, the cost of closing completely often comes out nearly equal, while usually resulting in a better product.

You can see why many clubs "Biggie Size" their construction projects! The caveat is that courses must ensure these benefits by actually finishing quickly! This requires extensive preplanning. At our recent renovation at Indian Creek in Carrollton, Texas, the owner wanted the course out of play only six months. To accomplish this, our design:

• Avoided environmental permitting restrictions by providing compensatory flood storage, avoiding wetlands, and minimizing tree clearing.
• Used much of the existing routing and features to minimize time and cost of construction. This resulted in a $3-million project versus $4 million to $5 million for similar renovations.
• Limited bidding to Golf Course Builders Association of America-certified contractors, who were qualified for a fast-track project. We placed strict schedule requirements - and penalties - in the specs.

Timed work to hit optimum grassing dates in summer, and developed a fast-track grow-in program, to assure the best possible results. The course reopened October 17.

The world has changed in many ways over a generation. I don't doubt that courses have always made the best decisions possible in their circumstances. But, today's low-interest rates, high -uality contractors with ability to accelerate construction, and the importance players place on having their course available (We baby boomers are so impatient!), usually mean the best thing for a course is to complete renovation in one year. <<

Universities' 'living laboratories' providing answers

By Mark Leslie
While the golf industry's past is littered with anxious moments amid unanswered questions about its environmental integrity, the present is bulging with scientific data dispelling many of those fears. The turnaround, to a great extent, has emerged from research conducted the past few years at new university golf courses that are serving as "living laboratories."

Kansas State University and Clemson University have recently built golf courses with a mission - to provide a body of scientific knowledge surrounding golf course construction and maintenance - as well as serving as competitive venues. At the same time, Purdue University rebuilt its Kampen Golf Course, where scientists have an ongoing major wetlands study. Many of the other major universities with turfgrass programs have undertaken myriad scientific studies, especially since 1991 when the United States Golf Association (USGA) ratcheted up its funding for such projects. Since 1981 that funding alone has totaled $21 million, according to Dr. Michael Kenna, research director for the USGA.

"Work has been done all over the country - from Penn State to the universities of Georgia and Illinois, Texas A&M, Kansas State, Rutgers, Arizona and elsewhere. Everybody has contributed," said Dr. Trey Rogers of Michigan State University, whose two old-time golf courses are frequented by scientists of all disciplines.

That research has paid enormous dividends, Rogers said, adding, "We have gotten a lot further down the road than in the late 1980s and early '90s."

While many environmentalists and others in the general public painted golf courses as "the big bad guy," he said, "what we have found out is that turfgrass, by its general nature and natural attributes, is a tremendous filter for fertilizers and chemicals. In regard to return on investment, the value of the work done with USGA funding is probably immeasurable at this point."

"The database," agreed Dr. Bert McCarty of Clemson, "has shown that golf courses are not the polluters once thought. If pesticides are applied just before a 2-inch thunderstorm, that is a problem because the chemicals may flush out into the ground water before the grass can take them in. But if you avoid catastrophic rainfall, the data has shown overwhelmingly that golf courses are very beneficial.

"You don't hear as much hype about nutrient or pesticide leaching as you did 10 years ago because data has come out disproving it."

At Kansas State University, the 2-year-old Colbert Hills Golf Course has been a virtual wellspring of information unique from any other course in the world because a group of researchers spent two years prior to construction gathering baseline data to compare with data collected once the course was built and operating.

Indeed, because Colbert Hills is an Audubon Silver Signature Course, Audubon International, along with various Kansas State scientists, had substantive input into the course design with golf course architect Jeff Brauer and design consultant and PGA Senior Tour player Jim Colbert.

"Audubon International staff consulted, mostly on water and runoff issues, and K-State scientists were involved in setting the drainage patterns and selecting the turfgrasses and research areas out on the course," Brauer said.

Testing Positive
The major findings at Kansas State and Purdue, so far, are positive:
o At Purdue, Dr. Zac Reicher said they have proven that creative wetlands filter and improve water, whether it is entering or leaving the course.

"The biggest thing we have found," he said, "is that the quality of water in terms of nitrogen when it comes onto the course, is reduced throughout the [three-quarter-mile] wetlands system. Then it is either released into a natural wetland, or recycled and pumped back into irrigation ponds."

Referring to a creek that runs through Kansas State's Colbert Hills, Dr. Steve Starrett of the Civil Engineering Department said, "The erosion that occurred during construction was significant, but it was a short-term impact and, since then, it has reduced to below preconstruction levels."

"I'm not surprised at that finding," said Brauer. "We discovered at Giants Ridge Golf Club in Minnesota that the water quality in Wynne Lake improved once the course was built."

Starrett is keeping track of a dozen studies at Colbert Hills, ranging from water and soil quality to turfgrass management, grassland ecosystems, geographic information, and aquatic, avian and insect communities.

Indeed, Colbert Hills stands as "a testimonial to the researchers in turfgrass," said Dave Gourlay, CGCS, director of golf operations. "They helped with everything and have made it a living laboratory, a real role model of how golf courses can function. It's one of a kind."

In the world of research, five- and 10-year studies are often the norm. (As Kansas State's Starrett said, "I think we need at least five years of operational timeframe.") And university researchers, as well as golf course superintendents, around the country are waiting with great expectations for the results of those long-term studies.

At Clemson, Dr. Ted Whitwell, chairman of the Department of Horticulture, said of Walker Golf Course: "There have been a lot of interdisciplinary studies on the course - in entomology, wildlife biology, environmental toxicology, turfgrass studies... There are numerous projects going on."

Whether it be SubAir tests or soil-fertility studies at Clemson; insect migration at Kansas State; or water-quality research at Purdue, superintendents are interested.

Superintendent Don Garrett, CGCS, says the substantial SubAir tests on research plots and several "weak" holes on Walker Golf Course show that the system which pumps air below the surface of greens "works well. It is questionable whether it creates a significant change on soil temperature. But you can remove water from the soil and get oxygen into it; if I can do that, that's is a good thing."

Garrett foresees help to superintendents when a study on spring dead spot is complete; and added that research on a sensitive creek on the property has proven the course has almost no effect on water quality. Although this might be a site-specific finding, a mass of such anecdotal information should help the golf industry as a whole, he says.

Meanwhile, students for whom one might not consider the golf course helpful, are gaining experience there. An engineering class held a competition to design the best footbridge across a lake on the course, surveying, conducting tests and then designing three styles of construction. And landscape architecture classes have held competitions for designing plans for holes on the course.

Because Colbert Hills is unique in that studies were performed on its 315 acres of prairie and pasture before construction, it may provide the most useful data. In fact, it already is doing so.

"All of our studies are very unique because of the scale we are working on," said Starrett. "We are studying these parameters on a functioning golf course in a large 1,200-acre watershed."

"It's been tremendous just talking to the entomologists," said Colbert Hills' Gourlay. "They give us thresholds. Sometimes we think the thresholds are too large and that we should take a different type of control action, but they tell us to hold on for another week and the pests will be gone. And they are correct. It helps us make more strategic controls on the golf course. We are finding that oftentimes the best control is simply to wait things out."

"Dave has one of the lowest maintenance budgets I know, and he does a tremendous job," said Brauer. "That course is in fantastic shape."

Perhaps the most significant study is at Colbert Hills. Several agronomists, entymologists and biologists have developed a mechanism for defining soil quality and determining what characteristics of the soil should be improved.

"We had the unique opportunity to get in on a golf course development from the very beginning," says Dr. Steve Thien, "so we started studying the site's many parameters, looking at the physical, chemical and biochemical characteristics of the soil... We were able to follow changes in these characteristics from the time it was native grassland into construction and now in its third year of course operation time."

Thien measured 22 different parameters - ranging from organic matter content to pH, aggregation, microbial biomass, salinity, porosity and the availability of several nutrients. "We do not know exactly the ideal value for a lot of these parameters," Thien says, "so we have tried to establish a window between the upper and lower limits on each measurement. For instance, for the bulk density of soil, we might set the window between 1.2 and 1.4 grams per cubic centimeter. We monitor this over time to see if we're staying in that window or moving out of it. Depending on which side of the window we're moving, that would prompt certain management to bring it back in line."

What Thien and his colleagues have developed, he says, is "exactly what a golf course manager would need. It is based on science but you don't have to be a scientist to understand it."

The "it" he refers to is a spider radar graph which expresses all of these parameters. "Imagine a spider's web with a lot of rays going out from the center," Thien says. "Each ray is one of the parameters we are studying. We have normalized all of the data so that we can draw two rings - the lower acceptable limit and upper limit - for each parameter."

By plotting a point on this graph for each characteristic in a golf course's soil, a superintendent could quickly look at the graph and determine the health of his his environmental ecosystem and where any problems lie.

The U.S. Department of the Interior is interested in this research for use on parks and recreation land, Thien says, adding that Kansas State is hoping a firm comes forward to create software based on and market this method of soil-quality testing.

Micro Research Now the Norm

Meanwhile, with the major questions regarding chemical leaching and erosion having been answered, researchers are eyeing studies of a more specific nature.

"Today," said Michigan State's Rogers, "the USGA is sponsoring [more focused] research that says, for instance, 'Let's look closer at dollar spot and determine exactly what is causing it and can we stop it.' "

McCarty confirmed Rogers' statement, pointing to studies on root biostimulants, Bermudagrass encroachment, dry versus wet soils, and other such tests.

As scientists, research assistants and students walk their college golf courses with microscope or test vial in hand, university officials are taking calls from developers, city planners, environmental groups and others looking for results to help their cause - be it to support or stop particular golf course projects.

"I commonly get calls from around the country from politicians and community leaders, asking my opinion of the golf industry and the environment because they have a new golf course proposed in their areas," said Starrett. "There are two different ends of the spectrum. Some feel adamantly there is a huge negative environmental impact and others are very pro golf. I get to tell them where reality is at."

That reality comes from a growing wellspring of scientific data that has pointed accusing fingers away from golf.

At this point in time, said the USGA's Kenna, greenhouse and small field studies appear to find golf courses innocent. Nevertheless the government has done water-quality research that shows spikes in the amount of nitrogen, phosphorus and pesticides in both urban and suburban runoff.

"I don't know how many more sites we can evaluate," he added. "At some point it is not the USGA's problem. Some of the companies, and the government as well, need to address these issues, particularly problems stemming from homeowners."

Kenna, however, did add one caveat: "Everyone thinks this issue [of golf's environmental impact] is going away. Superintendents are certainly more careful than 10 years ago. But golfers are making some difficult demands on superintendents that sometimes can cause them to possibly do some things that are a little more risky than they would like to do." >>

Brauers Get Hat Trick of Aces

GRAND PRAIRIE, Texas - It didn't take long for 14-year-old
Andrew Brauer to cut into his Dad's lead in family holes-in-one.
En route to winning a tournament on the North Texas Junior
PGA's Prescott Tour at Prairie Lakes Golf Club, Andrew skied a
wedge shot into the hole on the 117-yard 7th hole.

"The family now has the hat trick," said Dad Jeffrey, mixing golf
with hockey (he is a season ticket holder with the Dallas Stars).
Jeff's two aces came at San Francisco Golf Club and at Great
Southwest. Both were 172-yard holes that Jeff sank with a 5-iron. <<

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