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CourseCo Honored for Environmental Leadership in Golf

CourseCo, a San Francisco Bay Area-based golf management and development company, has been awarded Environmental Leaders in Golf Awards (“ELGA”) for 2010, for “superior environmental stewardship” at three Bay Area golf courses: Metropolitan Golf Links in Oakland; Crystal Springs in Burlingame; and Callippe Preserve in Pleasanton.

These were among 15 ELGA chapter award winners, together with five national and five merit winners, jointly announced in January, 2011 by Golf Digest Magazine and the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America (GCSAA), to honor “farsighted superintendents who are doing the right thing regarding best environmental practices,” according to Golf Digest editor Roger Schiffman.

“Overall course management excellence in the areas of resource conservation, water quality management, integrated pest management, wildlife/habitat management and education/outreach” are criteria for the awards, which are determined by a panel of judges representing national environmental groups, turfgrass experts, university research and members of the golf community. CourseCo’s three 2010 ELGA awards bring to 25 the number of ELGA awards won by CourseCo-managed courses since the inception of the awards program in 1993.

The ELGA award sponsors - Golf Digest and the GCSAA - are respectively the world’s highest-circulation golf publication and the leading professional association for golf course superintendents.

Crystal Springs Golf Course is located 20 miles south of San Francisco in wildlife preserve and watershed lands in the Santa Cruz Mountains west of San Mateo, CA. The adjacent Lower Crystal Springs Reservoir stores drinking water for San Francisco and much of the Bay Area. Crystal Springs includes habitat lands for the endangered San Francisco garter snake and red-legged frog, and several species of raptors.
Course superintendent Tim Powers, CGCS, holds forestry management and turf management degrees from the University of Maine and University of Massachusetts. During his 9-year tenure at Crystal Springs, Powers has reduced irrigated lands from 90 to 75 acres, and implemented an Integrated Pest Management program that restricts use of agricultural chemicals. Seaweed extract is the only fertilizer used. Powers and his crew and volunteers have installed bird, bat, and butterfly boxes. New tree and vegetation plantings are limited to San Francisco Peninsula native plants.

Callippe Preserve Golf Course, opened in 2005, is owned by the City of Pleasanton, and located in a 280-acre open space preserve in the Mount Diablo Range at the southern edge of the city. The course is named for the endangered Callippe silverspot butterfly, and 30 acres adjacent to holes 11, 12, and 13 are dedicated to butterfly habitat restoration. Natural arroyos traversing the course are habitat for the endangered California red-legged frog and tiger salamander. Course superintendent Mike Garvale, CGCS, has implemented a minimalist irrigation program to keep the arroyos dry, in order to prevent bullfrogs-natural predators of both species-from invading the property. Additionally, Garvale and his crew have implemented a bird box program and an organic fertilizer and minimal pesticide program.

CourseCo’s third 2010 ELGA Award winner is Oakland’s Metropolitan Golf Links, a city-owned course located near the Oakland Airport on the site of an old landfill dump and depository for bay mud dredged to deepen the Port of Oakland. Due to the high salt content of the soil, the golf course, which was built in 2002, was planted with native grasses and other salt-tolerant plants. Waterways through the site were restored to their native condition, and today serve as waterfowl habitat. Course superintendent Gary Ingram, CGCS, had to improvise a coot-friendly fence to protect birds and golfers from each other when a flock of migratory American coots colonized the 17th green a few years ago. Ingram also led a major estuary restoration project to replace non-native pampas and cord grasses with native coyote bush, salt grass, pickle weed, and gum plant.

Ingram, who attended local schools, leads the CourseCo-created nonprofit Oakland Turfgrass Educational Initiative (“OTEI”), in which Oakland youth and other students take classes in chemistry, biology and agronomy, and participate in golf and natural areas internship and mentoring programs. Over 300 students participate annually in the OTEI program, according to Ingram.

Based in Petaluma, CA., CourseCo is a 21-year-old golf management and development company that specializes in municipally-owned and environmentally-sensitive golf properties. “Golf provides healthy exercise in nature,” says CourseCo Founder and President Tom Isaak. “Golfers have a responsibility to preserve and enhance nature, and our company is dedicated to this objective.”

In addition to Crystal Springs, Metropolitan, and Callippe, CourseCo manages 17 public courses in California, Oregon and Washington, including courses owned by San Jose, Sacramento, and Orange Counties, Fresno, Napa, Walnut Creek, Visalia, Eureka, Redmond, OR., Richland, WA., and Washington State University in Pullman, WA. CourseCo’s numerous environmental awards include the 2003 California Governor’s Environmental and Economic Leadership Award for Sustainable Practices, the State of California’s “highest and most prestigious” environmental honor. CourseCo is the only golf-related business ever to win this award.

CONTACT:
Tom Isaak, President
tbisaak@courseco.com
707-763-0335