worth reading The Greening of Sagebrush

Is brown the new green, or is green still the new green?

That's the question Brad Ziemer of the Vancouver Sun raises in an article about Sagebrush Golf & Sporting Club, a new course in British Columbia designed by Dick Zokol, Armen Suny, and Rod Whitman. The course, which was named 2009's best new Canadian course by Golf Digest, has been praised, Ziemer says, for its "sensible maintenance practices" and its "firm and fast course conditioning philosophy."

According to Ziemer, Sagebrush uses fewer fertilizers and pesticides than its competitors, and far less water, too. As a result, it spends about 75 percent less on maintenance costs.

And it's green, not brown.

"What we are doing is radical," Zokol says. "There has been criticism. People are afraid of what we are doing. It threatens their philosophy, it challenges them."

The bottom line: The designers believe that the maintenance practices being employed at Sagebrush "could help save courses that have been ravaged by an industry-wide recession."

Here's Zokol again: "This industry is in significant danger, and everyone knows it. There are golf clubs going broke daily in North America. And part of the problem is the obesity of the game.... There is this over-indulgence that is commonplace, and it's run amok."

Here's a link to the story, called "Firmer, Faster, Cheaper."