How one South Carolina golf course solved water quality issues and improved turf

There are 36 holes of golf at Dataw Island, a coastal community in Beaufort, S.C. There’s Tom Fazio’s Cotton Dike course and Arthur Hills’ Morgan River course. Brian Hollingsworth has overseen the two courses as director of golf maintenance for 21 years.

It’s one of South Carolina’s premier private golf communities. While golfers enjoy the beauty of the marshland and the scenic views, Hollingsworth saw something his golfers did not: a real problem with water at the courses.

“We’ve had a history of water problems — a water quality problem, but also a water quantity problem,” Hollingsworth says. “When you put those two together, we were in a bad spot with turf conditions because of the water quality.”

More bad news: Hollingsworth says this summer has been perhaps the worst drought conditions he’s experienced in his 21 years there. 

So why is the course greener and in better shape than it’s ever been at this time of the year? The answer is what he calls an “emergency buy” that has paid off for the veteran superintendent.

Tiny bubbles

Hollingsworth was at a conference hosted by the USGA Green Section at Pinehurst Resort a year and a half ago when a fellow superintendent introduced him to Ron Pote, CEO and owner of NanoOxygen Systems. 

At the time, Hollingsworth was dissatisfied with the conditions of his greens. The course had switched to a different water source three years earlier, and rooting was terrible.

“I’d said for years there was something going on with our water that I couldn’t put my finger on that was making turf conditions worse,” Hollingsworth says. “I wanted to look more closely at the water quality aspect that NanoOxygen works on. I met Ron, and literally the next day, he was at Dataw. We looked at our dissolved oxygen, our well and our effluent, and it was terrible. We literally purchased the system at Dataw on an emergency buy — it’s been a godsend and helped us tremendously.”

Hollingsworth says he knew the course had a solid bicarbonate problem. What he didn’t know was that it also had an oxygen depletion problem. With the treated water, he’s seeing better and deeper root growth. He’s also excited that the courses have fewer localized dry spots and are staying greener and healthier.

“These microscopic bubbles are injected with oxygen and ozone, and that is the magic,” he says. “When you mix that into your irrigation water, those highly oxygenated bubbles stay in the water column and do their work in the soil to improve turf. It’s only been a year and a half, and we’re starting to see the true benefits of it.”

Man on fire

When Golfdom ran into Pote at the 2026 PGA Show, he said his company has been “on fire” in the golf market in the time since they exhibited at the 2025 Golfdom Summit.

“We’ve tripled our sales this year already from this time last year. We’re expanding internationally into Mexico, the Dominican Republic, and I got a call the other day from Peru,” Pote says. “It’s a lot easier to talk to superintendents about what we’re doing because people are seeing great results. Superintendents are starting to talk to each other about it.”

Pote boils down the system like this: Oxygen is their primary gas, and it strengthens roots to grow deeper, which means they have to work less to get water. The ozone damages pests like nematodes, which positively impacts conditions. And lastly, the addition of carbonic acid breaks down to carbon in the soil and is an effective way to control pH.

Hollingsworth says the setup is “hard to describe” but calls it a pump-and-tubular-pipe system with lots of probes and special equipment that “makes it happen.” 

“Meeting Ron Pote and installing the system has been a game changer for us,” Hollingsworth says. “We seem to be heading in the right direction now.”