Newport shares the thoughts of Jim Hyler, who was inaugurated as president of the U.S. Golf Association in February of this year. Hyler has said that many of the standards currently used to construct and maintain courses have become unsustainable, and the focus should be on course playability instead.
In August, the U.S. Amateur will be played at Chambers Bay in Washington, which Newport dubs as “a poster child for sustainable golf.” According to the article, the course has only 85 acres of turfgrass, and all of the grass on the greens and fairways is fine fescue, a tough, drought-tolerant strain. These firm conditions allow golfers to engage their imagination, which is “where the fun begins,” says Bruce Charlton, ASGCA, who joined another ASGCA Past President, Robert Trent Jones II, in designing the course.
Even in areas where water isn’t an urgent issue, Newport writes that using less water, fertilizers, fuel, and man-hours for maintenance would be beneficial anywhere.
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