An Environmentalist Who Is … On Your Side?

Brent Blackwelder is a hardcore environmental activist. The president emeritus for Friends of the Earth, a prolific Washington, D.C.-based

Brent Blackwelder

environmental group, also happens to be an avid golfer who sports a single-digit handicap.

Many people in the golf course maintenance industry believe environmentalists like Blackwelder don’t know a ball mark from a divot when it comes to what they do for a living. But Blackwelder, regarded as the most senior environmentalist in Washington, is an exception. He knows more about golf course maintenance and conditioning than most golfers. That said, Blackwelder believes golf courses use too much water.

But rather than just make such a sweeping statement and leave it at that, Blackwelder elaborates on the matter with a powerful anecdote.

He says he was playing golf recently with friends at a private club in Washington. One of the players launched a shot that landed five feet in front of the green and stopped cold — the ball buried in mud.

By coincidence, the course’s superintendent was driving by in his utility vehicle at the time, and the players called him over. After showing him the ball, they asked the superintendent if he thought there was too much water on the fringe of the green.

The superintendent, probably feeling a bit uneasy, replied, “If I don’t irrigate enough around the green, the Poa annua will die from the heat. And the area will turn brown.”

Blackwelder and his friends could see the superintendent was caught in a classic damned-if-you-do-and-damned-if-you-don’t scenario. They understood his dilemma.

Blackwelder says several courses in the Washington area feature bentgrass/Poa annua greens. Blackwelder has played the game long enough to know the Poa will wilt and die in the summer heat much quicker than bentgrass if it doesn’t get more water than bentgrass. And superintendents won’t allow this to happen since they don’t want dirt patches on their courses’ greens — and hordes of complaints from golfers.

Blackwelder understands that superintendents, especially those at private clubs, are under pressure from members and golfers to deliver excellent conditions daily.

“A lot of golfers come from this everything-has-to-be-manicured-immaculately school because that’s how they treat their own front lawns,” he says.

Blackwelder says it’s time for golfers to stop expecting such superior conditions at golf courses. It’s time for them to stop pressuring superintendents for those conditions.

“Golfers need to be more tolerant,” he says.

Then, superintendents won’t have to look over their shoulders if they reduce irrigation and let courses play harder and faster … and look a little tan (not even brown) in spot places.

“The courses [in Washington] get watered so much that it never seems like you’re playing during a summer dry period because your ball doesn’t get any bounce,” Blackwelder says. “Who needs balls getting covered in mud?”

Blackwelder has a solid point that needs to be considered. And his take on golf course maintenance, especially irrigation, also proves that not all environmentalists are out to get golf courses. Heck, Blackwelder just wants to play them … with a little less water, of course.