KEEP OFF THE GRASS

Grass grows from exposure to sunlight and rainfall, but how does the grass grow on your local fairways and greens? It may need a little extra help over the cold winter months to look its best; so many golf courses apply growth hormones  We heard about a bizarre situation where a prestigious club forked out 50k for growth hormones this winter only to fork out another 50k for anti-growth hormones to nullify the effect, after a very mild winter.

Golf courses are credited with using herbicides, insecticides, fungicides, nematicides, growth and anti-growth hormones. Many of these chemicals will remain in the sediments and soils for tens if not hundreds of years.

Over hear in the UK, climate change is bringing about warmer, wetter weather patterns. All of these chemicals applied to fields and golf courses are gong to be more suspectable to being washed away into ground water under increased rainfall. Different weather requires new solutions?

House prices have a propensity to increase when situated next to golf courses, but perhaps they should be treated with caution, similar to living next to a crop spraying field.

We wondered how many golf club members were informed about the chemicals being used to keep their courses looking good throughout the year. Our initial research found that very few, if any, UK clubs provided any transparency on this issue.

We are now in the process of asking the R&A and their Golf Environmental Organisation (GEO) to consider a proposal for either a voluntary or mandatory scheme to provide members upon request with information about the chemicals golf clubs use out on the course.
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