How the USGA is helping golf courses save almost $2 billion annually

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For as a lot consideration as the skilled facet of the recreation will get, it’d shock you to be taught that by far the largest a part of the golf economic system includes sustaining and enhancing the almost 14,000 courses on this nation and over 30,000 courses worldwide.

Then once more, it won’t be a shock, given how a lot every of us treasures the courses we play. The USGA is dedicated to making sure the future well being of golf amenities via the Green Section, which was based in 1920 as a collaboration with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. As previous USGA president Richard Tufts wrote in 1952, “better turf at lower cost has always been our objective.” 

But you ain’t seen nothing but. The USGA is accelerating its help for analysis, committing greater than $2 million annually via the Mike Davis Program for Advancing Golf Course Management. Research from the Davis Program helps courses cut back prices for water, vitamins, pesticides and vitality, totaling almost $2 billion in annual financial savings to the golf course upkeep trade. Talk about return on funding!

Launched in 1952, our Course Consulting Service continues to offer one-on-one, unbiased recommendation to about 600 courses annually, and that quantity is rising. The Green Section is additionally a hub of innovation, permitting us to broaden our attain. Our training group publishes the Green Section Record biweekly to offer trade professionals and golfers with the newest on research-based course care. We’ve dramatically prolonged our affect and influence by including a social media presence that’s amongst the most generally adopted and influential in golf course upkeep.

Last however actually not least, this 12 months we’re bringing the wonderful and progressive GS3 ball (“The Smartest Ball in Golf”) to superintendents as a method for them to measure the firmness, smoothness and velocity of the placing floor, which impacts your taking part in expertise greater than every other a part of the course. Built on the USGA’s Deacon app, GS3 and different instruments in the pipeline are offering the USGA with a brand new and extra direct method of supporting golf’s most useful belongings — our courses. 

I’ve had a number of nice alternatives to contribute to the recreation as I strategy my twenty fourth 12 months with the USGA, however by far the most rewarding has been as part of the Green Section group. It’s an superior accountability to be part of a legacy of agronomic experience greater than 100 years previous that has had such large influence. We are motivated to construct on that influence and advance the recreation’s golf courses properly into our subsequent century.

Matt Pringle is managing director of the USGA Green Section.

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Matt Pringle is the managing director of the USGA Green Section.