Sustainable Golf

Somewhere in the late 90's we all figured that the world was going to end at the new milenna, or so, give or take a few years. It all depended on your sources, Mayan, Incan or whatever ancient calender you chose to follow. Feeling like I was on the edge of something new I started to view what I did and how it would fit into this new world. I new that my skills were valuable and that they would have applications that would ensure my survival. Odd as it seems I am a golf course superintendent. How I got there or at least how I see myself getting will just have to wait.



A golf course superintendent is at the most basic level a greekskeeper, but things are never on that level. Unfortunately for me it is difficult to put into words but that is the charge I have given myself when I started this story.



I keep seeing myself sitting in a small grove of trees at the country club in Kentucky where I worked while I went to school. The patch of trees was between holes fifteen and sixteen. The shop was close by behind the sixteenth green. This small patch of trees was located on the right side of the fifteenth tee near an on course bathhouse named Shacks Shack. Apparently an old club president named Shacks had it built many years ago. An all cedar enclosure that included a water fountain and a toilet. Two sides of the building were open to the outdoors one open side faced the tee box and the other side faced the grove of trees where I am sitting. It then opens up to a small L shaped pond that guards the dogleg left side of the sixteenth hole. The shade of the trees and the coolness of the pond make this a sweet spot to stop and reflect on my thoughts. The location is not to obvious to the average golfer but it sits out in the open, but just because of the flow of traffic is going different ways it is often an overlooked cubby, but I claim it as mine.



Here one day I sat enjoying my moment when the superintendent drives by twisting his head to see what I am up to in mt little grove. Jim, my first real mentor, is a bristly shortish fellow with thick hair and a thick mustache to match. He has been around for some time and has a quirky way of doing things. He shakes his head staring at me through his blue blocker sunglasses his thick hair motionless as he zoos down the cart path on sixteen across the pond from me on his way to the shop.



That is when I think of it, the habitat I'll call it. A sustainable golf course that mixes all of the things that are dear to me. The golf course not only houses the regular course but also boasts a farm and an animial sancturary. These things all work in senergy. The golf course uses vehichels that use grain alcohol for fuel that comes from corn grown on the farm. It also fuels the farm vehichiles and everything else. The crops help feed the farm animials and in turn feed the animals that make up the sancutary. The sancutary is a home for injured animals that also works as a zoo and educational center. These three entities co-exist together, the grass from the course can be used as feed and compost that grows the crops. This is what I see as my future, and more importantly I see is as using all of my education and making golf more than what it is now. It is a world I can make on my own and if the world is going to end and we are stranded in a wasteland I can make it on my own.