An increasing number of golf courses are employing environmentally friendly and sustainable practices, some taking it a step further. Following are three great examples.
While most of Florida’s great golf courses are built on flat-as-a-pancake, palm-studded terrain, Streamsong Resort (www.streamsongresort.com), with two of the state’s most in-demand resort courses, is built on terrain previously used as a phosphate strip mine.
The miners packed up and left behind a spectacular site with soaring sand mounds, some as high as 75 feet, lakes and vegetation. Streamsong is being developed by The Mosaic Company, which has owned the land for more than five decades.
“Mosaic’s investment in Streamsong was all about showing the world what we can do with reclaimed land, and about how we go above and beyond environmental sustainability by adding economic sustainability through redevelopment,” said Tom Sunnarborg, vice president of land development and management at The Mosaic Company.
Sustainability at Streamsong is more than just a buzzword, according to Sunnarborg.
“In practice, it means we’re committed to making smart choices about our stewardship of the environment, how we engage our people and the way we manage our resources.”
Located near Lakeland, about 55 miles east of Tampa, Streamsong Resort encompasses two highly ranked championship golf courses, Blue and Red, a 216-room lodge, 24,600 square feet of meeting space, a spa, a fitness center, four restaurants, a rooftop lounge and a lakeside pool.
Equally impressive is Salish Cliffs Golf Club (www.salish-cliffs.com) in Shelton, Wash., near Tacoma, which recently became the first “Salmon-Safe” certified golf course in the world. Salish Cliffs received the certification after it passed an exhaustive assessment verifying its commitment to protecting native habitat, managing water runoff, reducing pesticides and advancing environmental practices throughout the region.
Salish Cliffs Golf Club is located next to the 190-room Little Creek Casino Resort, which has 40,000 square feet of meeting space. The golf course and hotel are both owned and operated by the Squaxin Island Tribe.
Green initiatives abound at the Pebble Beach Company on the Monterey Peninsula in California, which oversees more than 5,300 acres of properties, including one of the world’s most revered golf courses, Pebble Beach Golf Links.
Highlighting the Pebble Beach Company’s sustainability program are state-of-the-art irrigation systems that maximize its water conservation efforts; the utilization of organic and slow-release fertilizers; and a reuse and recycling program that diverts millions of pounds of plastic, glass, paper and other materials away from landfills.
