ASK THE EXPERT

Make Sustainability The Centerpiece of Your Intern Program

By Jim Pavonetti

at courses in the top-fifty lists in Golf Digest or Golfweek, leaving nothing for other clubs, even though the learning experience and culture would still be extremely beneficial to them.

At that point, I realized that we needed to set ourselves apart from other clubs vying for interns.

I had been involved with Audubon International at my previous position and brought its certification programs to Fairview. It was a great way to attract student interns that were looking for items to add to their resumes. For example, instead of simply having a line on their resume that said, “Interned at Fairview Country Club in Greenwich, Connecticut,” it might have a subtext that would include participating in environmentally sustainable projects, working through Audubon certification or re-certification, and then listing the projects. I believe this added enough value to continue to attract new interns most seasons, and certainly new assistant superintendents.

rise to assistant superintendents at our facility. Like interns, assistant superintendents have also been tough to find, but the value of our internship program is clear. We are attracting quality management staff who have essentially been through a season-long interview.

Before I came on as superintendent at Fairview Country Club in 2008, Fairview had an internship in place that was always fully supported by the Club. But if you think back to what was happening to the economy and golf in late 2008 to 2009, both were in decline. What naturally followed was a decline in turf students and college turf programs in general.

There were plenty of people entering the turf industry and attending turf programs at multiple universities, so there wasn’t generally a problem for a club like Fairview to attract one or two interns each season. But as students became scarce, the ones that remained typically would end up

All our interns have been students studying turf or plant science at different universities.

University of North Dakota, Penn State, Rutgers, UMass, and UConn are some of the schools we have worked with. I am happy to say that four interns ultimately returned to

Our internship program also enhances and strengthens our long and fruitful relationship with Audubon International. We train young future turf managers on sustainable practices that they will follow and improve throughout their careers. This is vital to the industry as more and more legislation becomes involved with turf management at all levels. When most interns first come on board, they are just looking for any type of learning experience, especially projects. General day-to-day maintenance can become boring, but a project is something exciting they can write about and add to their resumes and portfolios. Environmental projects and practices certainly fit the bill and can also help set them apart from the competition when it comes time to pursue a management position.

While most student interns have limited experience, they also have great ideas. They add different perspectives that generate some great sustainable practices or changes to our programs. I always tell them that I hope to learn as much from them as they will learn from us. That gives them enough motivation to not be too shy to give their opinion on things.

Gaining such well-rounded, sustainability-focused knowledge also broadens our interns’ horizons in terms of landing a future job. They usually come in focused on obtaining a big superintendent job at a well-known private club. I always take the time to show them that there are other great options to consider, as well. The private club world is not for everyone, so it is important to make sure they know what they are getting into. There is nothing wrong with working for a public facility or municipality. I have worked for both, so I can offer good perspectives on several types of courses to consider. If you’re looking to attract and train dedicated, focused and motivated future superintendents, consider building an internship program. Work with universities and other schools to attract students, and make the proven sustainability practices central to Audubon International certification central to your efforts. It’s a big win for all involved — stewardship for our profession, as well as the land we manage.

Jim Pavonetti, CGCS, Director of Golf Course and Grounds at Fairview Country Club in Greenwich, Connecticut, was named to his position in 2008. Active in the field for over three decades, Mr. Pavonetti held the same position at the Edison Club and the West Point Golf Course. He led the way for Fairview Country Club to achieve the designation of Certified Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary, through Audubon International. He was rewarded with the MGA Arthur P. Weber Environmental Leader in Golf Award in 2019. He also earned the Environmental Leaders in Golf Award by the GCSAA eight times between 2006 and 2022.

Member Spotlight

Certification process for helping him get there.

During the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America convention in Orlando in February, Chen stopped by the bustling Audubon International booth to visit with CEO Christine Kane and her staff and fill them in on the big stewardship strides his home country is taking.

there’s pollution. But we have a very good plan.”

Part of that plan is bringing the game into his nation’s golf culture, which has traditionally been geared toward private clubs (its first “golfing society,” Taiwan Golf & Country Club, opened in 1918). “There hasn’t been much opportunity for people to go inside a golf course [in Taiwan], but the courses are ‘opening their minds’ so more people know about it.”

Chen added that, as happened on so many courses around the world during the Covid-19 pandemic much of that wildlife found its way to his course’s temporarily empty spaces. “Two years ago, from May through July, the Taiwan government asked that all golf courses close because of the pandemic. So we were closed for two months. Nobody playing golf, but we still needed to maintain the course, and we found out the wildlife were really happy — they came out from the slopes, the rough. Including a lot of snakes! When I’d come out and check on the course, they’d run away.” on the course — even snakes. They see the lifecycle at work on our golf course. And when golfers come out to play, they’re finding a lot of wildlife.

But they’d come right back, and they’ve never left. Chen says they’ll stick around even with a second nine on his drawing board.

I have procedure for the front nine [to attract and keep wildlife], and want to do it on a back nine. The wildlife is a signature [piece of the successful stewardship picture]. If there’s no wildlife, you have a problem. Everybody knows how important it is.”

Exposing more people to the game, and his course’s stewardship is, of course, a linchpin of every ACSP For Golf plan. Besides general public outreach, Chen points to an ongoing “cooperation” with a primary school about a mile away. “The kids are very happy to come out once a year for an activity, go out on the course. I introduce them to the wildlife. Just sitting on the turf grass makes them happy, but then I invite them to play golf for free.”

Hung-Ming Chen vice general manager, horng-shee tai-ping golf course, taichung city, taiwan

Due largely to the efforts of a longtime golf manager named Hung-Ming Chen, Taiwan is one of Asia’s up-and-coming nations in terms of golf course sustainability — and he credits Audubon International’s ACSP for Golf

Four golf courses in Taiwan are currently ACSP for Golf Certified. Of those four, Chen has led three of them to Certification — Wu Fong Golf Club in Wufong District (where he was employed 2007-2011), National Golf Country Club in Miaoli County (2005-2009) and, in 2021, Horng-Shee TaiPing Golf Course in Taichung City (2010-present), a 9-hole course laced through tropical hills overlooking urban sprawl to the west, with the Taiwan Strait beyond. Located in the west-central part of the island, Taichung is Taiwan’s third most populous city with more than a million residents. A tiny fraction of them play golf or have even stepped foot on a course, but Chen, as Horng-Shee’s Vice General Manager — which roughly equates to a GM/ Superintendent in the U.S. — is out to change that. He’s not only exposing more of his countrymen to the game but changing their assumptions about its environmental impact in such a densely populated part of the planet.

“A lot of people in Taiwan think that golf courses have destroyed the wildlife,” he says. “Plus,

“I just hired a company to survey our wildlife because I want to apply for another nine holes. While managing the original nine, we found a lot of wildlife in the area where we want the second nine. We have more wildlife on the nine we have right now, because we followed Audubon International’s [guidelines], made a plan, reduced chemical usage, and managed water quality while saving water.”

Indeed, attracting wildlife in the first place meant providing them a safe water source while taking care of the course’s turf. “We need to conserve water in our ponds, so if it rains or we irrigate, that water drains into them — and if you have no fish in the ponds, you have a problem. We have fish. I have also found turtles and ducks. I don’t know where they come from, but they are on my course. And they are happy.”

Chen is busy forging partnerships with local wildlife organizations to track the various species gracing the course’s grounds, including one birding concern. “The’ve really noticed the eagles there,” he says. “They’ve found that a golf course is a very good place for eagles, because they can stay in high areas [in the trees] and catch food

That focus carries over to higher education, as well. Chen performs site surveys in cooperation with National Pingtung University of Science and Technology’s Department of Plant Industry and National Taiwan University Department of Agronomy. He’s also an instructor there and invites student interns to “work on the course, learning how to calculate chemical use, fertilizers, and how to run the equipment. If you want to operate [properly], you need to think about education. It’s very important.”

Besides translating some of Audubon International’s educational materials into Mandarin, Chen has co-written a book, “Practical Turfgrass Management,” which he calls a “textbook that will help a lot of people who want learn turfgrass management.” Taiwan’s government has heard about it. “I would like to share with them how to manage turfgrass, and also protect the environment.”

And that means continuing to strengthen his partnership with Audubon International and, hopefully, spurring more Taiwan courses to become members and get in the certification pipeline.

“If you follow Audubon’s six sections, you will do a great job,” he concludes. “You will have no pollution on your golf course, and find more wildlife. I’m planning to do more research and write an article so more people in Taiwan know more about it.”

Monarchs in the Rough Set For A Growth Spurt

Though the U.S. Fish and Wildlife service hasn’t officially listed the magnificent monarch butterfly on its Endangered Species list, the last two decades have seen its population decline by more than 90 percent.

Even with recent counts in California and Arizona showing a huge increase in observed numbers of the western monarch, the two North American populations of this colorful and crucial migrating creature are far from out of the woods. Climate change and building development are taking their toll.

The western monarch mostly migrates backand-forth among five states, but the east coast and Midwest-based populations travel up to 4,000 miles every year, wintering in Mexico and summering as far north as Canada, taking a minimum of four generations to make the trip. They need healthy stops along the way.

Through its successful Monarchs in the Rough program, Audubon International is doing its part to help the monarch thrive. So far it has partnered with more 800 golf courses to create some 1,200 out-of-play acres of milkweed habitat where the butterflies lay their eggs and, in caterpillar form, dine on the otherwise invasive but vital plant.

“Golf courses continue their positive contribution to the habitat needed,” says Audubon International CEO Christine Kane. “[Monarchs in the Rough] has been somewhat on hold during the pandemic, but now we look forward to continuing to grow the program, increase new habitat.”

That means making sure a participating course gets the strain of milkweed appropriate for its region. After starting Monarchs in the Rough in partnership with the Environmental Defense Fund — which realized that golf was an apt, economically viable venue for increasing habitat, given most courses only 30 to 35 percent of their acreage for actual playing of the game— Audu- bon International now handles all elements of the program, working with distributors nationwide to assure healthy milkweed installations. They also provide signage, posters, and technical guidance, so that the installation of this new habitat is done correctly and golf course members are made aware of the efforts their course is making to save the monarch.

“When they're in butterfly form, monarchs can use nectar from other plants, but when it comes to maintaining their lifecycle, they need the milkweed, but there’s a lot of regional species,” Kane says. “[Through] Monarchs in the Rough we distribute regionally appropriate milkweed. With every one of our certification programs, we encourage native plantings. We don’t send milkweed from the southeastern United States to the Northwest, for instance.” (Kane adds that Monarchs in the Rough partners don’t have to be active Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary for Golf members, but this program often spurs them to pursue certification.) Partner courses are required to plant at least an acre of milkweed, usually in appropriate outof-play areas, though some courses find ways to plant near tee boxes, creating handsome transition zones especially in bloom season. Parcels can’t be smaller than a quarter acre, “though we like to see a full acre in one place,” Kane says — a larger parcel is less susceptible to, say, excessive windblown pesticide spray. Once the milkweed is established and monarchs start showing up and laying eggs, the results are measurable and manageable for virtually any size maintenance staff — who love maintaining a plot of land teeming with life.

“We hear from many superintendents that their maintenance crews really appreciate having the opportunity to contribute like this,” Kane adds. “I just had a really nice conversation with a new sustainability person at a development and one of the things we talked about was how it can benefit you, your company internally, in garnering new employees, in retaining employees, in employee satisfaction. It gives them the chance to participate and feel like they’re contributing to something that could be very near and dear to them, part of their own personal core values.”

Monarchs in the Rough also helps further Audubon International’s ongoing efforts to ensure a sustainable future for the golf industry — and changing certain public attitudes toward the game.

“It’s important,” Kane says. “It’s a better way to demonstrate the positive impact golf can have and contributions it can make. Rather than having a lot of smaller programs of only 50 or 25 acres that are hard to bring together, we have one program as the leader for golf's efforts in this area. It’s very beneficial.”

To become a Monarchs in the Rough partner or for more information, visit monarchsintherough.org.

Golf Course Spotlight

Virginia’s NOVA Parks Courses Are ‘Capital’ Wildlife Sanctuaries

Though Washington, D.C., is just a few bends down the Potomac River, the three public, Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary certified courses in Northern Virginia’s NOVA Parks system — Algonkian in Sterling, Brambleton in Ashburn and Pohick Bay in Lorton — put the Mid-Atlantic region’s teeming natural bounty in beautiful and inspiring view from season to season.

More than 130 bird species, from bluebirds to bald eagles, have been seen or heard on the courses, along with plenty of deer and chipmunks and the occasional coyote or bear. Golfers share healthy playing spaces and scenic native areas with these and other critters, and love it, according to Bryan McFerren, Golf Course Superintendent for Algonkian and Brambleton, both of which he led to ACSP for Golf certification in 2007.

“Golfers are happy about what we’re doing, they feel safe, and feel good about playing in what they call a Park environment,” he said during a midwinter check-in at Algonkian. “They feel good about the fact that we’re taking the environment into account when we manage things.”

McFerren was quite familiar with Audubon International by the time he got to NOVA Parks. He learned about ACSP certification during a presentation he attended as an assistant superintendent for Westwood Country Club in Vienna, Virginia. A few years later, as superintendent for the University of Maryland Golf Course, he finally found an employer willing to go all-in on sustainability. “I led them to Wildlife Sanctuary status in probably 2000, 2001, 2002,” he says. “I eventually learned that my experience in leading a golf course to Wildlife Sanctuary status helped me get this job where I am now. Things work out for a reason.”

Initial certification process for his NOVA courses took about nine months. “My first couple months I did some initial planning, got the process started. Once we got to September and past the heat of the summer I was able to focus more on it. We got the certification completed by the end of the year. So, if you’re a golf course superintendent and you’re looking to do certification, my response is, you can do 95% of the whole thing in the less busy seasons, when you don’t have the grass to worry about since it’s dormant in many regions.”

As he led his crew through the six-step ACSP Certification plan in concert with Audubon International staff, McFerren found the process similar to what played out in Maryland —identifying areas where he could make changes, “tweak our programs,” modifying sprinkler coverage to be more efficient with water usage and, of course, creating more natural features around the golf course, specifically in no-mow areas and transitions between turf and pond and creek edges. In terms of using pesticides, he was judicious about it then and remains even more so now. “We’re a public municipal golf course and don’t have hundreds of thousands of dollars to throw at chemicals,” McFerren says. “I don’t spare expense when it comes to making sure the turf is protected. But I save money when I can. I don’t believe in spraying every week eight, nine months out of the year just in case something pops up. And Audubon International understands that. They understand that you need to keep the golf course up to standards. It doesn’t matter if you’re a public golf course or you’re high end private. There are standards to make and attain.”

Even so, maintaining ACSP certification for nearly two decades has led to savings in just about every area of maintenance operation, from fuel to man hours — mowing rough takes 40 to 45 hours per week instead of 60, for instance. McFerren has also fostered valuable partnerships with local birding groups who volunteer to track migration patterns, maintain bird boxes and assure healthy habitat for all winged friends.

“We have a woman who’s been working with us on managing our Purple Martin houses,” McFerren says. “She comes in at least once a year to give me an update on how many fledglings we have and might ask if there is any money in the budget for things that might help like bird wing guards. I can certainly spend $200 to help with the population. We’ve been very fortunate to have some dedicated people managing those things for us.”

As for the dedicated golfers filling the tee sheet as the seasons pass, McFerren says if there’s occasional “blowback” on how their courses are maintained, it’s easily overcome by the positives “once you make them aware of why things are the way they are.”

“They notice things like no-mow areas,” he adds. “When we created them we made sure they were far enough away from the field of play that a golfer can stand up on a tee and could say, ‘Yeah, I’m not gonna hit it over there.’ I go out there with turf mark paint, I draw some dotted lines and say there’s nobody gonna be over here. They’re not gonna complain about this because it’s so far off the beaten track.

“Our staff had to be re-educated with some of these things — the person who’s out there mowing rough, out there trimming around the edges of the pond. Trim it down to six or eight inches and don’t feel like you have to be down there every week. Golfers don’t like it so much when their ball trickles down to the edge of the creek or the edge of the pond and it’s 12 inches of grass.”

Trimming trees takes careful thought, too. “At Brambleton years ago, we had had a director of golf who wanted to limb up all the trees. They were growing down to the ground. Makes sense. But then I noticed after time that I didn’t see any more chipmunks. That was an early impression on how the environment can change based on the things we do. Granted, we have to balance that with what the golfers need and want, but you have to think about these things.”

The ongoing tally of this certification commitment and care? Untold riches in terms of wildlife, natural beauty and a playing experience that almost everyone treasures.

“We all are aware of some of the negative ideologies and philosophies that people have about golf courses. [Certification] helps temper that. As golf course superintendents and managers, we become advocates and demonstrate that we’re not the bad guys out here. We’re the good guys. The animals are coming here to live and make a home and have babies. It’s good for the game of golf, it’s good for us as professional turf grass managers.”

Editor’s Note: A version of this story also appears in the March 2023 edition of Golf Central Magazine.