SGCC: Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary

BY EMILY KAUFFMAN DIRECTOR OF COMMUNICATION

In honor of Earth Month, let’s take a deeper dive into the environmental stewardship practiced at our Club.

You’ve no doubt enjoyed the beautiful blooms around the property, but it’s not all tulips and daffodils. While those flowers add a gorgeous aesthetic to our home-away-from-home, many of the plants cultivated by our Grounds Crew serve a larger ecological purpose. Springfield Golf & Country Club achieved certification as an Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary in 2018, but what does that mean?

Audubon International is the current iteration of what began in the early 1900s as part of President Theodore Roosevelt’s conservation efforts. The guiding mission of Audubon International is to create environmentally sustainable environments where people live, work, and play—including golf courses.

The Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary Program for Golf helps courses enhance their valuable natural spaces and wildlife habitats while improving efficiency, minimizing the harmful side effects of golf course management—such as chemical runoff— and preserving the natural heritage of the game. When a golf course begins its journey toward certification, they receive a Site Assessment and Environmental Planning guide that helps establish baselines such as the number of bird and mammal species, vegetation, region-specific issues, and water quality that help determine areas for improvement.

If you read the career retrospective on former Golf Course Superintendent Lentz Wheeler in the March issue of “The Springfield Story,” then you know achieving certification was an extremely time-consuming process, but also the most rewarding accomplishment of Lentz’s extensive career. The push for certification saw an increase in natural land protected from disturbance, a reduction of managed turf-grass areas (meaning it was converted into a natural habitat), and a 25% increase in naturalized shorelines along our ponds and creeks.

Let’s Pollinate!

When the SGCC Crew began working toward certification in 2010, the Club had twenty-five “aesthetic” gardens and a small vegetable/herb garden near the kitchen. To fulfill the Environmental Case Study requirement, the Grounds Crew began work on a wildlife pollinator garden with the goal of attracting butterflies, bees, and hummingbirds, all of which are vital pollinators. Pollinators are crucial for our ecosystem; they facilitate the reproduction of 90% of the world’s flowering plants, and are essential for food systems, habitats, and other natural resources.

Since 2010, the Club has added three pollinating gardens: 15 tee, 15/16 green, and 3 tee. We also maintain several beehives on the course which increase the efficacy of these gardens while also providing signature SGCC honey that our culinary team uses in dinner, dessert, and drink specials for the membership. If you’ve been a member for a while, then you know we also expanded the original herb garden from a few beds growing basil and mint to a garden full of a wide variety of vegetables from squash to tomatoes to peppers that now covers most of the hill next to the kitchen.

What About the Water?

Water from our course feeds into Accotink Creek then Accotink Bay, Gunston Cove, the Potomac River, and the Chesapeake Bay before reaching the Atlantic Ocean. While certain protections were already in place due to the 1993 Fairfax County Chesapeake Bay Preservation Ordinance, minimizing chemical runoff by creating more effective buffer areas and implementing Integrated Pest Management programs that reduce the need for spraying and fertilizing were top priorities during our certification process. Water testing now shows that water is actually cleaner as it leaves our property than when it enters! Further, we’ve never experienced algae bloom in any of the bodies of water on our course which indicates excellent nutrient management. Plant material in our waterways mitigates nitrates and the pond acts as a sort of phosphorous sink, capturing some of the phosphorous load from the streams that feed it and making it readily available for plant uptake.

You probably noticed the large piles of organic material drying on the course this winter. When we dredge the lake to remove sediment and other natural build up, we let it dry then use this rich organic material to fertilize other areas of the course— recycling at its finest!

Birders Paradise

Part of the Audubon Certification is education and outreach. To that end, we’ve established nature trails with bluebird, owl, and bat houses that our campers enjoy exploring in the summer months. We also host “Early Birdie” golf course tours in the spring where members take a guided trip around the course to try and spot the many bird species that make their home on our golf course. If you’ve never taken part in one of these tours, make sure to reserve a spot for our next set of tours coming up on April 22 and 23.

Where Do We Go from Here?

Audubon Certification is not a one-and-done; we were recertified in 2021 and will seek recertification again soon. Our efforts to enhance the natural wonder of our course are ongoing, as are our efforts to effectively manage chemical application. Members can help by paying attention to signage around the course and following local rules in place to protect wildlife gardens. Other seemingly small efforts like properly fixing ball marks, throwing away trash, and obeying cart rules also go a long way toward our overall environmental goals. If you’re looking for more ways to help, consider picking up a reusable SGCC water bottle in the Pro Shop and filling it at a water fountain instead of using a disposable, plastic water bottle next time you hit the golf course. 