WEBVTT - Golfers and Environmentalists Are Not Enemies 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:03.160 Hello, and welcome to the Frida Egg Podcast. I'm Garrett Morrison. 0:00:03.640 --> 0:00:07.119 Today we talked to doctor Colet Thompson of the USGA 0:00:07.320 --> 0:00:10.960 about how golf courses are beneficial to the environment and 0:00:11.039 --> 0:00:14.160 could be even more so. But first, this episode is 0:00:14.200 --> 0:00:18.320 brought to you by B Dratty. B Dratty is the 0:00:18.360 --> 0:00:21.200 official apparel of the Fried Egg and there's something you 0:00:21.280 --> 0:00:24.320 might not know about their products. It's that they love 0:00:24.480 --> 0:00:29.520 using sustainable, natural fibers like their organic Peruvian pima cotton 0:00:29.800 --> 0:00:33.720 and alpaca yarns. 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So there's this perception out there 0:01:15.000 --> 0:01:18.000 that golf courses are not good for the environment, that 0:01:18.040 --> 0:01:21.800 they use too many chemicals, too much energy, and just 0:01:21.840 --> 0:01:26.280 in general that they're not ecologically beneficial or sustainable. And 0:01:26.520 --> 0:01:29.360 as a golfer, I've always thought that this perception was 0:01:29.440 --> 0:01:33.640 overly simplistic. I look at golf courses and often what 0:01:33.680 --> 0:01:35.720 I see is not a blight on the environment, but 0:01:35.880 --> 0:01:41.240 instead wonderful, vital green space that's worth protecting. The problem is, 0:01:41.520 --> 0:01:45.040 I've never really had specific evidence or research to point 0:01:45.040 --> 0:01:48.400 to and say, see, golf actually can be a big 0:01:48.400 --> 0:01:52.200 contributor to a healthy ecosystem. So I figured, since Earth 0:01:52.280 --> 0:01:55.400 Day is coming up this Thursday, it's Earthweek, I suppose 0:01:56.080 --> 0:01:58.600 it was time to bring on someone who really knows 0:01:58.680 --> 0:02:01.200 this subject, and few people know more about it than 0:02:01.200 --> 0:02:05.120 Cole Thompson. Cole got his bachelor's, master's, and PhD from 0:02:05.160 --> 0:02:08.639 Kansas State University, and he's worked as a professor at 0:02:08.760 --> 0:02:12.480 the University of Nebraska and cal Poly. These days, he 0:02:12.480 --> 0:02:16.560 helps direct the USGA Turf, Grass and Environmental Research Program, 0:02:16.639 --> 0:02:19.840 which provides funding for all kinds of different projects, including 0:02:19.840 --> 0:02:22.520 ones that have to do with the relationship between golf 0:02:22.560 --> 0:02:25.800 courses and the environment. In this episode, we dig into 0:02:25.800 --> 0:02:28.519 a couple of those studies and just generally talk about 0:02:28.520 --> 0:02:32.760 how to understand what golf courses bring to an ecosystem 0:02:32.800 --> 0:02:35.280 and how they might be able to bring more. All right, 0:02:35.400 --> 0:02:38.399 here's Cole Thompson. I miss a green, for example, I'm 0:02:38.400 --> 0:02:40.600 already upset. When I find my ball in the bunker, 0:02:40.639 --> 0:02:42.880 I'm really upset. And when I find my ball. 0:02:42.720 --> 0:02:45.560 In a fried egg Frida egg, the dreaded Frida egg 0:02:45.639 --> 0:02:48.680 Frida egg fride egg Brian egg Frida egg bride egg lie. 0:02:48.560 --> 0:03:13.360 I'm about ready to run off the hump course. So 0:03:13.400 --> 0:03:15.280 we've talked to a lot of people on this podcast 0:03:15.280 --> 0:03:20.080 with easily explainable jobs golf course architect, professional golfer. People 0:03:20.240 --> 0:03:23.680 might not be familiar with your particular profession, your particular 0:03:23.760 --> 0:03:25.560 job at the USGA, So could you tell me a 0:03:25.600 --> 0:03:29.240 little bit about that and what your department is doing there? 0:03:29.600 --> 0:03:32.480 Yeah? Absolutely, And I mean you're exactly right. It's not 0:03:32.520 --> 0:03:36.000 an easy thing to describe. You should hear some of 0:03:36.040 --> 0:03:39.160 the conversations I have with people I meet. It depends 0:03:39.160 --> 0:03:41.360 on how interested they are, how much detail I give, 0:03:41.720 --> 0:03:45.160 sort of very vague, and then maybe we eventually went 0:03:45.200 --> 0:03:48.440 to it down. But so the Green Section itself has 0:03:48.480 --> 0:03:50.560 been around for one hundred years as part of the 0:03:50.640 --> 0:03:55.320 USGA and was founded or established initially to conduct research 0:03:55.320 --> 0:03:59.400 to help golf courses manage turf more sustainably but still 0:03:59.440 --> 0:04:02.040 provide the play conditions that they want to provide. And 0:04:02.080 --> 0:04:04.760 so that was the genesis of the Green Section, and 0:04:05.280 --> 0:04:08.600 over the years it has evolved and changed in various ways. 0:04:09.520 --> 0:04:13.320 Around the mid century, the course Consulting Service was founded, 0:04:13.760 --> 0:04:16.960 and there was a focus on not just conducting research 0:04:17.040 --> 0:04:19.600 but getting it out to the masses. So that was 0:04:19.640 --> 0:04:23.200 a kind of a big turning point. And then later 0:04:23.240 --> 0:04:27.159 on in the eighties we started the internal kind of 0:04:27.160 --> 0:04:30.320 focused research being conducted by people in the USJ started 0:04:30.320 --> 0:04:32.960 to expand, and really that was in the sixties and seventies. 0:04:33.120 --> 0:04:35.880 The USJA started funding universities a lot more to do 0:04:35.920 --> 0:04:41.040 research with scientists at specific universities, and then that has 0:04:41.080 --> 0:04:44.839 increased even more with the advent of the program that 0:04:44.880 --> 0:04:47.479 I now manage, the Turf Grass Environmental Research Program that 0:04:47.600 --> 0:04:51.960 was essentially established in nineteen eighty three, and it's a 0:04:51.960 --> 0:04:56.599 competitive grant program, a competitive RFP essentially where we have 0:04:56.640 --> 0:04:59.960 a set of research priorities and we ask university scientists 0:05:00.120 --> 0:05:02.400 to propose, you know, ways that they think they can 0:05:02.440 --> 0:05:05.760 make progress against those priorities. And then with an advisory 0:05:05.800 --> 0:05:10.599 panel of scientists, you know, I review and select which 0:05:10.640 --> 0:05:12.719 ones of those we think we should go after support. 0:05:13.120 --> 0:05:14.960 And then we we kind of work with those scientists 0:05:15.000 --> 0:05:17.800 for the next few years to get reports on their 0:05:17.839 --> 0:05:21.279 projects and eventually publish it in the peer review literature, 0:05:21.320 --> 0:05:25.560 which is an important record and an important review of 0:05:25.600 --> 0:05:28.640 the science to make sure that the scientists who conducted 0:05:28.680 --> 0:05:31.120 the work that their peers approve it. And and that's 0:05:31.120 --> 0:05:34.520 an important step that we that we think is very important. 0:05:35.080 --> 0:05:39.039 And so anyway, that's the that's the research program, but 0:05:39.160 --> 0:05:42.440 the the in how it runs today, the course consulting 0:05:42.520 --> 0:05:47.000 service is still very much around. At some point the 0:05:47.000 --> 0:05:51.560 the Green Section record UH was established and it's gone 0:05:51.600 --> 0:05:54.000 by various names. It's a it's a digital magazine that 0:05:54.080 --> 0:05:59.000 the USGA circulates anyone can subscribe to. It's freely available, 0:05:59.400 --> 0:06:03.480 so that is published twice a month. And then recently 0:06:03.600 --> 0:06:07.560 we have a tools development team where there are some 0:06:07.560 --> 0:06:12.160 folks actually working on developing digital tools for they kind 0:06:12.160 --> 0:06:15.880 of organize a lot of the data that research and 0:06:15.920 --> 0:06:18.200 science have produced over the years, So that that's kind 0:06:18.200 --> 0:06:21.720 of a high level overview of the Green Section and 0:06:21.880 --> 0:06:25.320 in all of our parallel teams and missions that are 0:06:25.320 --> 0:06:29.240 working towards that common goal of optimizing resource use and 0:06:29.279 --> 0:06:30.240 playing conditions. 0:06:30.640 --> 0:06:33.680 Yeah, the USGA Green Section is doing a ton of 0:06:33.720 --> 0:06:36.719 really interesting work right now. And one of the programs, 0:06:36.920 --> 0:06:38.880 the one that we're sort of going to focus on 0:06:39.440 --> 0:06:44.800 today is the turf Grass and Environmental Research Program, which 0:06:44.800 --> 0:06:48.719 you refer to earlier, where you're giving grants to academic 0:06:48.800 --> 0:06:53.560 institutions essentially to conduct research that's relevant to golf course 0:06:53.600 --> 0:06:57.440 management golf course maintenance. So you know, there are many 0:06:57.520 --> 0:07:01.240 different kinds of turf grass research that you might fund 0:07:01.480 --> 0:07:04.000 right there. There are many different kind of purposes and 0:07:04.680 --> 0:07:08.560 objectives that this kind of research might have. What what 0:07:08.680 --> 0:07:11.480 kind of research or what kinds of research is the 0:07:11.560 --> 0:07:15.320 USGA particularly interested in funding right now? What are kind 0:07:15.360 --> 0:07:16.160 of the imperatives? 0:07:16.880 --> 0:07:20.120 Yeah, so we are. Our three kind of broad initiatives 0:07:20.160 --> 0:07:23.520 are to you know, sustainable golf management and playing conditions, 0:07:24.280 --> 0:07:29.679 protecting and conserving water resources, and identifying and developing novel 0:07:29.680 --> 0:07:31.840 plant materials which you can think of as plant breeding, 0:07:32.280 --> 0:07:34.880 and so that those are pretty three pretty wide nets, 0:07:34.960 --> 0:07:37.480 and people people fit into them in a lot of 0:07:37.480 --> 0:07:41.640 different ways with their research poshai and so essentially it 0:07:41.720 --> 0:07:44.040 runs the gamut of the projects that we support, from 0:07:44.320 --> 0:07:47.760 very basic science, you know, genetics and breeding trying to 0:07:47.840 --> 0:07:52.160 understand how how plants grow and why grasses respond to 0:07:52.320 --> 0:07:54.680 different stresses the way they do, all the way to 0:07:54.800 --> 0:07:57.800 very applied research where there's a very problematic weed or 0:07:57.800 --> 0:08:01.400 disease or insect that somebody needs how to control, and 0:08:01.720 --> 0:08:04.040 you know, we want to develop a very specific set 0:08:04.080 --> 0:08:07.200 of strategies just to control that various best so and 0:08:07.240 --> 0:08:12.560 everything in between, irrigation management, fertilizer scheduling and management and cultivation, 0:08:12.760 --> 0:08:15.600 managing the soil profile which confers a lot of the 0:08:15.680 --> 0:08:18.520 traits that we appreciate of golf course turf. 0:08:19.560 --> 0:08:23.080 So a specific topic that I wanted to dig into 0:08:23.120 --> 0:08:26.760 with you, and something that's very widely discussed is how 0:08:26.840 --> 0:08:30.800 golf courses might bring more benefits to the environment than 0:08:31.000 --> 0:08:34.439 people know. And there are a couple of projects that 0:08:34.480 --> 0:08:37.200 the USGA is helping to fund right now or has 0:08:37.240 --> 0:08:40.960 helped fund recently that are looking into some of those 0:08:40.960 --> 0:08:44.000 benefits and really trying to understand them because it is 0:08:44.200 --> 0:08:46.720 a complex topic and one that people make that kind 0:08:46.760 --> 0:08:50.320 of these declarations about that are not necessarily supported by 0:08:51.240 --> 0:08:54.080 research or reason. One of those projects is called the 0:08:54.240 --> 0:08:57.360 Natural Capital Project. Could you tell me about that? 0:08:58.040 --> 0:09:02.199 Yeah, absolutely, So the Natural Capital Project started in twenty 0:09:02.320 --> 0:09:06.199 seventeen and it's a collaboration with scientists at the University 0:09:06.200 --> 0:09:11.360 of Minnesota and now Michigan State University. But the Natural 0:09:11.360 --> 0:09:15.079 Capital Project itself is a conglomerate of different research institutions 0:09:15.120 --> 0:09:19.120 and nonprofits that are trying to define the well, basically, 0:09:19.200 --> 0:09:22.559 what's in their name, the natural capital that landscapes provide, 0:09:22.600 --> 0:09:26.120 and how we can leverage that and measure that. And 0:09:26.200 --> 0:09:29.160 so this group of scientists had an interest in trying 0:09:29.160 --> 0:09:31.600 to apply that to golf scapes and trying to understand 0:09:31.600 --> 0:09:34.720 better how golf courses fit into communities and what benefits 0:09:34.760 --> 0:09:38.560 they provide, especially in urban communities. And they essentially were 0:09:38.640 --> 0:09:43.040 they developed a methodology where they can assess and model 0:09:43.120 --> 0:09:47.040 the basically the services and disservices of golf course provides, right, 0:09:47.080 --> 0:09:50.480 because it can go both ways, but they were able 0:09:50.480 --> 0:09:53.640 to quantify, you know, this set of benefits at the 0:09:53.679 --> 0:09:57.360 start at the starting phase just the golf courses in 0:09:57.400 --> 0:10:01.120 the metropolitan area of Minneapolis and Saint Paul and basically 0:10:01.200 --> 0:10:03.920 get an average response for what a golf course, what 0:10:03.960 --> 0:10:07.160 benefits it provides or doesn't provide to that community. And 0:10:07.360 --> 0:10:11.000 when they're using these models, they're basically using data published 0:10:11.040 --> 0:10:14.680 from previous research that shows, you know, like what a 0:10:14.679 --> 0:10:19.600 golf course might provide from an urban heat island mitigation standpoint, 0:10:19.640 --> 0:10:25.040 a temperature mitigation standpoint, from a biodiversity standpoint, or how 0:10:25.040 --> 0:10:28.800 many nutrients are or are not, you know, leached from 0:10:28.800 --> 0:10:31.040 the property or run off from the property into the 0:10:31.080 --> 0:10:34.320 watershed or nearby streams in the watershed. And so they're 0:10:34.360 --> 0:10:36.559 able to use all of that data that has been 0:10:36.559 --> 0:10:39.120 collected over many years and kind of feed it into 0:10:39.160 --> 0:10:44.560 the background of land use characterizations golf courses or something else, 0:10:44.800 --> 0:10:47.600 and then how it's managed. And it's basically it comes 0:10:47.640 --> 0:10:50.400 down to it's a really powerful communication tool because it's 0:10:50.400 --> 0:10:52.600 a way to organize all of that research and say, 0:10:52.640 --> 0:10:56.240 you know, based on these parameters, golf courses provide X 0:10:56.280 --> 0:10:58.800 compared to some other land use. And that's how they 0:10:58.840 --> 0:11:01.240 approached it, because you know, golf courses are under a 0:11:01.240 --> 0:11:03.880 lot of pressure. They're typically set on very valuable lands, 0:11:04.000 --> 0:11:06.920 or they're you know, unfortunately they might be failing, especially 0:11:07.080 --> 0:11:09.840 municipal course, and a city might be trying to decide 0:11:09.840 --> 0:11:12.560 what to do with that golf course. And very often 0:11:12.600 --> 0:11:15.959 if a golf course is replaced, it becomes a park 0:11:16.800 --> 0:11:20.360 or a residential landscape, or even an industrial park. And so, 0:11:20.920 --> 0:11:23.480 and then the most important comparison I would argue to 0:11:23.520 --> 0:11:26.240 a golf course is the background natural landscape. Because we 0:11:26.280 --> 0:11:28.880 can only hope to be as good as the background landscape. 0:11:28.880 --> 0:11:31.760 That has to be the benchmark. And so they basically 0:11:31.760 --> 0:11:35.120 compared golf courses to all these other land uses again 0:11:35.200 --> 0:11:38.439 for a set of services and disservices, and basically showed 0:11:38.480 --> 0:11:41.920 that the golf courses provide a very similar or better 0:11:42.080 --> 0:11:46.800 urban heat island mitigation. So they cool surrounding communities on 0:11:46.920 --> 0:11:52.960 par with parks and natural areas. They export slightly more 0:11:53.040 --> 0:11:56.880 nutrients than those naturalized landscapes, but they export less nutrients 0:11:56.960 --> 0:12:00.680 than residential communities. Right, so they're kind of they provide 0:12:00.679 --> 0:12:04.160 an intermediate level of service, the researchers would say. And 0:12:04.360 --> 0:12:08.680 then in terms of pollinator habitat, again they're not quite 0:12:08.720 --> 0:12:11.240 as good as the natural landscapes, according to this research, 0:12:11.559 --> 0:12:15.640 but better than than urban residential landscapes. And so so 0:12:15.679 --> 0:12:17.520 it's kind of just this way for everybody to wrap 0:12:17.559 --> 0:12:19.640 their head around, you know, how how a golf course 0:12:19.640 --> 0:12:21.720 really does plug into a community and what it actually 0:12:21.720 --> 0:12:23.880 provides rather than rather than guessing. 0:12:24.240 --> 0:12:27.880 Right, because when you're making these sort of urban planning decisions, 0:12:28.080 --> 0:12:31.199 typically in the past people have based those decisions more 0:12:32.040 --> 0:12:37.599 on on kind of sometimes sloppy perceptions about the environmental 0:12:37.640 --> 0:12:40.960 the relative environmental benefits of golf courses, and this study 0:12:41.000 --> 0:12:44.000 gets gets quite a bit more specific. You you mentioned 0:12:44.200 --> 0:12:48.640 urban cooling that the golf courses provide. You know, how 0:12:48.679 --> 0:12:51.960 do we put this? You mentioned the urban heat island. Essentially, cities, 0:12:52.080 --> 0:12:55.400 cities are hot right because they're you know, they don't 0:12:55.400 --> 0:12:58.280 have this kind of plant life and natural landscape, and 0:12:58.320 --> 0:13:00.559 so you know, they generate quite a bit of heat 0:13:00.600 --> 0:13:04.400 and golf course has helped to lessen that impact a 0:13:04.440 --> 0:13:07.599 little bit. So could you talk about what's the importance 0:13:07.640 --> 0:13:10.360 of that, How can we portray that to the public 0:13:10.600 --> 0:13:14.600 as something that is an important ecosystem service to use 0:13:14.760 --> 0:13:18.319 the language of the project that golf courses provide. 0:13:18.960 --> 0:13:21.439 Yeah, so you know, and I mean you're exactly right. 0:13:21.520 --> 0:13:24.920 The city is because it's a built environment. The concrete, 0:13:24.920 --> 0:13:27.920 an asphalt, all of those materials, they just retain heat 0:13:28.200 --> 0:13:30.400 more than plant material does, right, and so they heat 0:13:30.480 --> 0:13:32.120 up during the day and then they don't cool down 0:13:32.160 --> 0:13:34.680 at night. And so it's kind of a twofold problem 0:13:35.040 --> 0:13:37.880 where wherever you have an actively growing plant, waters water 0:13:37.920 --> 0:13:40.119 is always flowing through that plant, and then it evaporates 0:13:40.200 --> 0:13:43.080 off the leaf surfaces and that's a cooling process. It's 0:13:43.080 --> 0:13:45.800 just like sweat evaporating from your skin. And so that's 0:13:45.880 --> 0:13:49.880 kind of the I guess the thermodynamics of how it works, right, 0:13:49.920 --> 0:13:53.240 and why that green space is actually cooler than the city. 0:13:53.559 --> 0:13:57.800 But the important thing to emphasize is that the benefit 0:13:57.800 --> 0:14:00.520 of that cooling goes beyond the boundaries of the course. 0:14:00.559 --> 0:14:03.640 I don't remember the exact distance away from the golf 0:14:03.679 --> 0:14:05.800 course that they have found it provides, but but it 0:14:05.840 --> 0:14:08.880 does provide that service to the to its periphery right 0:14:08.920 --> 0:14:11.199 to it to a certain distance away from the core 0:14:11.240 --> 0:14:13.600 of the golf course. And and I mean this can 0:14:13.679 --> 0:14:17.520 translate to to a couple of important deliverables. I mean 0:14:17.559 --> 0:14:19.960 one is just lower lower energy use, right if it's 0:14:20.160 --> 0:14:23.040 if if if you have a cooler ambient environment, it 0:14:23.080 --> 0:14:26.840 might require less less air conditioning, and so people are 0:14:26.920 --> 0:14:30.640 using less energy potentially. And then there's also I mean, 0:14:31.360 --> 0:14:34.800 especially with some at risk populations, older people or people 0:14:34.800 --> 0:14:38.360 that have other health challenges. I mean to go to 0:14:38.520 --> 0:14:42.240 like the really far extreme deaths from from excessive heat, 0:14:42.600 --> 0:14:44.600 you know, are are an issue, and so there's actually 0:14:44.640 --> 0:14:46.680 a human health component there too. And not saying that 0:14:46.720 --> 0:14:49.280 golf courses saving them in the city are going to 0:14:49.440 --> 0:14:51.720 save x many lives in a year, but but but 0:14:51.840 --> 0:14:54.960 there there can be far reaching implications to to this 0:14:55.080 --> 0:14:56.200 type of effect. 0:14:56.520 --> 0:14:58.920 So one of the things that people need to do 0:14:58.960 --> 0:15:01.520 when they consider the the importance of golf courses to 0:15:01.760 --> 0:15:07.160 urban environments is is to compare them to other land uses. 0:15:07.600 --> 0:15:10.040 You know. I think we're well aware that, you know, 0:15:10.080 --> 0:15:12.720 the cooling services provided by a golf course, although it 0:15:12.760 --> 0:15:15.080 is surprising to me that they're on a level more 0:15:15.200 --> 0:15:18.680 or less with natural areas and parks. That's a cool 0:15:18.720 --> 0:15:22.720 finding of the project that might be somewhat unexpected. We 0:15:22.800 --> 0:15:25.800 know that golf courses as green spaces are more beneficial 0:15:25.840 --> 0:15:28.160 to the environment than an industrial park. I think people 0:15:28.200 --> 0:15:31.560 are aware of that I think perhaps the more important 0:15:31.600 --> 0:15:35.400 comparison will be with those natural areas, as you said earlier, 0:15:35.480 --> 0:15:38.400 and with parks, because those are the you know, for 0:15:38.440 --> 0:15:41.680 people who are sort of environmentally minded, those are the 0:15:41.800 --> 0:15:45.520 uses of golf course land that are most often suggested. 0:15:46.040 --> 0:15:49.560 So if someone's going to go about comparing the environmental 0:15:49.560 --> 0:15:52.600 benefits of a golf course to say a park, let's 0:15:52.600 --> 0:15:55.720 just start with a city park. How would they go 0:15:55.800 --> 0:15:57.680 about that? How do you think what would be the 0:15:57.680 --> 0:15:59.560 best way to start thinking that through? 0:16:00.520 --> 0:16:02.320 It's you know, it's a good question. And and and 0:16:02.400 --> 0:16:04.800 the first I think the first thing that especially with 0:16:05.080 --> 0:16:08.080 armed with this study, the first thing that people will 0:16:08.080 --> 0:16:10.880 look at specific to Minneapolis Saint Paul, and I should 0:16:10.880 --> 0:16:14.520 mention that they're also undergoing the same analysis in six 0:16:14.560 --> 0:16:16.840 other cities, and so we are getting some other geographies 0:16:16.880 --> 0:16:20.640 worked into this. And and there are important geographical differences 0:16:20.720 --> 0:16:24.080 in how landscapes or how golf courses performed to the 0:16:24.200 --> 0:16:27.200 background natural landscape, you know, think of a desert background 0:16:27.240 --> 0:16:30.320 natural landscape versus that in Minnesota. So there are differences. 0:16:30.360 --> 0:16:34.360 But if we just focus for your question on Minnesota 0:16:34.440 --> 0:16:36.440 and think about what a what a natural or you 0:16:36.480 --> 0:16:38.240 wanted to look at a park versus a golf course. 0:16:38.240 --> 0:16:39.920 So if we just if we just look at a park, 0:16:40.000 --> 0:16:42.480 you know, armed with this study, a reader can say, well, 0:16:42.520 --> 0:16:45.240 it's it's it's better or at least similar in terms 0:16:45.240 --> 0:16:47.720 of cooling a golf course is. But the golf course 0:16:47.720 --> 0:16:51.000 exports more nitrogen and phosphorus and doesn't provide quite as 0:16:51.040 --> 0:16:54.120 good of pollinator habitat because that was the proxy that 0:16:54.160 --> 0:16:57.840 the researchers used for biodiversity in their study. And so 0:16:58.040 --> 0:17:00.800 at face value, you might look at that and say, well, 0:17:01.040 --> 0:17:03.480 you know, then the golf course does not have as 0:17:03.560 --> 0:17:06.840 much value as the park. But if you look a 0:17:06.880 --> 0:17:09.560 little bit deeper, you know there's a couple of reasons 0:17:09.640 --> 0:17:13.320 why those results happen, and one is management. I mean, 0:17:13.600 --> 0:17:16.359 parks are not managed to the level that golf courses are. 0:17:16.440 --> 0:17:18.920 Less fertilizer is applied in a year, and so that's 0:17:19.080 --> 0:17:23.080 essentially why you get a little less runoff or export 0:17:23.160 --> 0:17:26.520 of nutrients throughout a year. But all of the research 0:17:26.560 --> 0:17:30.719 that supports this natural capital modeling effort shows for the 0:17:30.720 --> 0:17:35.960 most part that nutrients, when applied with proper best management 0:17:36.000 --> 0:17:39.240 practices on golf courses are really retained to the golf course. 0:17:39.280 --> 0:17:42.119 It's not very common when applied properly, that a nutrient 0:17:42.200 --> 0:17:44.600 or even a pesticide would leave the golf course and 0:17:44.600 --> 0:17:47.360 contaminate a water So even though we see that from 0:17:47.400 --> 0:17:49.719 the study, we know from the years of research that 0:17:49.720 --> 0:17:52.919 that's really not a very large risk. And again we 0:17:52.920 --> 0:17:56.399 can explain it with differences in management and why the 0:17:56.560 --> 0:17:59.480 why the model spit that out right. The other thing 0:17:59.480 --> 0:18:02.720 to consider is, you know, managing managing that park isn't 0:18:02.760 --> 0:18:05.879 necessarily free either, right, and so so if if this 0:18:05.920 --> 0:18:07.879 is a municipal golf course, right, we should look at 0:18:07.880 --> 0:18:10.760 the golf course and kind of kind of flip the 0:18:10.760 --> 0:18:12.520 script a little bit and think, well, you know, we're 0:18:12.520 --> 0:18:15.280 going to invest in a green space, right. People don't 0:18:15.280 --> 0:18:17.840 expect parks to make money hand over fist, Right, that's 0:18:17.880 --> 0:18:21.520 just an investment in the community. And at the municipal 0:18:21.520 --> 0:18:23.320 golf level, if we looked at a golf course the 0:18:23.359 --> 0:18:26.480 same way, you know, we're we're investing in that green 0:18:26.520 --> 0:18:29.560 space for the community and if and if the city 0:18:29.600 --> 0:18:32.080 makes a little money off the golf course, all the better. Well. 0:18:32.080 --> 0:18:34.680 Well, the last point you make is one that's going 0:18:34.720 --> 0:18:37.720 to be very persuasive to the non golfing public or 0:18:37.880 --> 0:18:41.440 or has potential to be persuasive to that public, because 0:18:41.880 --> 0:18:45.560 you know, when when cities talk about investing in golf courses, 0:18:45.920 --> 0:18:48.320 the assumption that a lot of people have and quite 0:18:48.320 --> 0:18:51.800 reasonably so I can imagine coming to this conclusion myself 0:18:51.840 --> 0:18:54.359 if I weren't a golfer, that if you're spending money 0:18:54.359 --> 0:18:56.119 on the golf course, you're not spending money on me. 0:18:56.480 --> 0:18:59.280 You're not, You're spending money on the golfers. And people 0:18:59.359 --> 0:19:01.560 have certain ideas is about who golfers are that aren't 0:19:01.560 --> 0:19:04.840 always accurate. But that's another subject. But if you say 0:19:04.920 --> 0:19:07.440 that we are going to invest in this golf course 0:19:07.480 --> 0:19:11.359 to naturalize certain areas or to do things to make 0:19:11.400 --> 0:19:15.439 it more of a benefit to the environment, then I 0:19:15.480 --> 0:19:18.640 think people can see that those benefits will come to them. 0:19:19.160 --> 0:19:21.320 That's a great point. I mean, there are like and 0:19:21.400 --> 0:19:23.240 you meant you brought up a very good point to 0:19:23.320 --> 0:19:26.240 naturalized areas on these golf courses provide a very wide 0:19:26.280 --> 0:19:31.040 reaching benefit to humanity. And that's some messaging that potentially, 0:19:31.160 --> 0:19:34.040 I think could help in that situation right now. 0:19:34.160 --> 0:19:37.080 So this is an exciting area of study to me. 0:19:37.160 --> 0:19:41.480 You know, arming urban planners with some specific ideas and 0:19:41.760 --> 0:19:46.080 real research about the environmental impact of golf courses in cities. 0:19:46.920 --> 0:19:49.359 Where do you think this research goes next? You know, 0:19:49.880 --> 0:19:52.800 the project seems to be very much in its early stages. 0:19:52.880 --> 0:19:57.119 Its initial findings are quite impressive, but focused on the 0:19:57.640 --> 0:20:01.600 Twin Cities area. You mentioned that it's going to expand 0:20:01.720 --> 0:20:05.720 out in addition to going out to these different areas. 0:20:06.600 --> 0:20:08.639 You know, where else do you think this project is 0:20:08.640 --> 0:20:11.080 going to go in the future and what could it discover? 0:20:12.000 --> 0:20:14.840 Yeah? So, so right now they are the same work 0:20:14.880 --> 0:20:18.080 that happened in the Twin Cities is occurring in See 0:20:18.080 --> 0:20:19.840 I'll try to work my way from east to west 0:20:19.840 --> 0:20:22.800 coast and not forget any but it's happening in Philadelphia 0:20:23.160 --> 0:20:30.440 and then in Atlanta, Georgia, Detroit, Dallas, Texas, Phoenix, Arizona, 0:20:30.520 --> 0:20:34.200 and San Francisco, California. So the idea is that those 0:20:34.240 --> 0:20:38.640 are ecoregionally specific and that they could because of their 0:20:39.000 --> 0:20:42.720 selected strategically, because you could potentially extrapolate the results from 0:20:42.760 --> 0:20:45.320 each of those locations to a little broader region and 0:20:45.400 --> 0:20:48.280 start to paint a bigger picture, a more comprehensive picture 0:20:48.320 --> 0:20:51.280 for the United States. So that's kind of the current 0:20:51.320 --> 0:20:53.240 step that we're working on. And they're also working on 0:20:53.280 --> 0:20:57.400 a a few more models that they're incorporating in this 0:20:57.560 --> 0:21:01.919 suite of services that they're quantifying. One is a storm 0:21:01.920 --> 0:21:04.960 water attention. That's another potential benefit for golf courses, as 0:21:04.960 --> 0:21:07.840 well as carbon sequestration, you know, just by the virtue 0:21:07.840 --> 0:21:10.280 of growing and sucking carbon dioxide out of the air 0:21:10.359 --> 0:21:14.040 grasses sequestor that in the soil, and so so that's 0:21:14.080 --> 0:21:16.720 another benefit. And then they're even looking at some things 0:21:17.400 --> 0:21:20.359 around around what golf courses provide in terms of home values, 0:21:20.440 --> 0:21:23.240 right and some of these economic drivers. And so they're 0:21:23.320 --> 0:21:25.560 they're kind of organizing you know, these other cities and 0:21:25.920 --> 0:21:28.879 other modeling initiatives, and and then they're also you know, 0:21:28.960 --> 0:21:31.600 looking for other opportunities to to continue the work where 0:21:31.600 --> 0:21:34.920 other cities might be interested in having the analysis done 0:21:34.960 --> 0:21:37.720 specific to their city. And so there are those types 0:21:37.720 --> 0:21:41.359 of opportunities as well. Also talking with the researchers, you know, 0:21:41.400 --> 0:21:45.080 I know they're they're interested in in some of these 0:21:45.200 --> 0:21:50.240 kind of mixed mixed use screen space scenario analyses like it. 0:21:50.400 --> 0:21:52.560 You know, at this point it's been if it's not 0:21:52.640 --> 0:21:54.880 a golf course you know, what would it be it's 0:21:54.880 --> 0:21:57.080 been if not golf and what But I think that 0:21:57.240 --> 0:21:59.760 you know, I think we all recognize that there's potential 0:21:59.800 --> 0:22:02.159 to to shift our thinking there a little bit and 0:22:02.200 --> 0:22:04.520 start to look at you know, more of a spectrum, 0:22:04.520 --> 0:22:07.520 Like there's obviously different ways that a golf course can exist, 0:22:07.560 --> 0:22:10.359 and we're seeing that kind of take hold in the US, 0:22:10.440 --> 0:22:13.600 and it's probably already taken hold outside of the US, 0:22:13.600 --> 0:22:16.159 and you know, short courses, and then what can you 0:22:16.200 --> 0:22:17.800 do with the rest of that space. Could some of 0:22:17.800 --> 0:22:19.720 that space be a park and some as a golf course? 0:22:19.760 --> 0:22:22.119 So could the periphery be hiking trails, but then the 0:22:22.160 --> 0:22:24.639 core is still a golf course. And could you maintain 0:22:24.680 --> 0:22:27.119 all the ecosystem service benefits by doing that? And so 0:22:27.480 --> 0:22:29.840