Underappreciated and overly important

As cities and urban areas continue to grow and literally push their way methodically into what used to be rural areas, the green spaces we are left with become more and more important to all of us.

Although the term green space seems rather broadly (and often incorrectly) defined, we are essentially talking about publicly accessible green areas, an environment consisting of natural vegetation, grass, plants or trees within those growing urban areas. They are retreats for people wanting to escape for an afternoon. Or maybe just a lunch break. Or a day. Or even a weekend. It’s about people wanting to find some semblance of nature within their urban confines.

But as urban areas continue their unrelenting growth, those green spaces become increasingly vital to us.

Green spaces can be constructed, managed areas, such as urban parks, trails and campgrounds, or they can be areas with minimal or no management, such as woods or nature preserves.

They can also be golf courses.

Golf offers a unique intrusion into the artificial, paved urban worlds we have created. Parks, cemeteries and golf courses tend to be the greenest of green spaces in these urban settings. The existence of a golf course in the middle of a city or a densely populated urban area is inviting to most people. We are drawn to the green, to the openness, to the entire recreational aspect of the golf course. Even non-golfers feel the pull of the green space. You can enjoy it without even utilizing it, like when you take a drive along a coast and you can appreciate a beach without stepping onto the sand. Sometimes the visual of the green space can be just as rejuvenating as running barefoot through the grass.

For many superintendents, realizing and appreciating their green space is not something we always do. It can get lost or forgotten in the daily bustle. I think the most we ever appreciate anything is the first few times we experience it.

I’m in my 23rd year as superintendent at my particular green space — Avalon Golf Links in Burlington, Washington — and I know firsthand I have not appreciated the beauty and tranquility of this location as much in later years as I did those first few.

But I’m working on that. You know the old expression, “Stop and smell the roses?” That’s a real thing we need to be doing. Stop. Look at them. Smell them. Touch them. Take them in. Maybe it’s just me getting older, but I am beginning to again appreciate my workspace like I did those first couple years here.

Avalon, where I have been superintendent since 2002, is fortunate to have no houses or businesses anywhere surrounding the golf course. Wooded areas, open fields and a horse ranch border the property. We are also nearly a mile off the turn-in road. Feeling secluded is definitely the vibe one gets when heading up our three-quarters-of-a-mile private road.

Driving to our clubhouse, you actually feel like you’ve left the hustle and have entered somewhat of a green haven. As mentioned, the course was built on a hill, which looks down on the scenic Skagit Valley and the Cascade Mountain range to the east. On a clear day, one can see the Olympic range when setting one’s gaze out past the horse ranch to the west.

Although the 27-hole golf course comprises about 125 acres of managed green space, the actual property owned by the Hass family is 235 acres. That extra 110 acres is primarily untouched woods consisting of alder, birch, cedar, fir and poplars.

In the more than two decades I’ve been here, we’ve had occasional cougar and bobcat sightings, to go along with the more common sightings of deer, coyotes, fox, beavers, herons, owls, geese and ducks. It’s commonplace to spot soaring bald eagles and hawks hunting silently above the property, wings spread.

But, of course, even courses that are surrounded by houses, or roads, or businesses can also be havens of green space. Perhaps even more so.

Before I started working at Avalon, I was an assistant superintendent at a private club in Everett, Washington, just north of Seattle, which is certainly much more urban and densely populated than Avalon. Like many, many golf courses, Everett Golf and Country Club is literally surrounded on all four sides by either houses, businesses or pavement.

The appeal of green space in that tight urban area is no doubt even greater than my current space here up north. When Everett Golf and Country Club was built more than 100 years ago, the original members of the private club planted Douglas fir saplings completely around the outer edge of the roughly 100-acre rectangular property. Today those firs are at least 120 to 130 feet tall and tower above everything around them. That rectangular green space stands out in Everett from miles away. It draws you to it.

Protecting our green spaces

With realistically no chance of the urban spread stopping or even slowing, it’s vital that those in charge of managing these all-important green spaces take care of them. We are stewards. Temporary stewards, of course, but nonetheless stewards. If we don’t protect these green spaces, who will?

Part of every superintendent’s job should be to not only be aware of the green space they have been entrusted with, but to do whatever they can to protect it. Replanting trees. Keeping buffers around water features. Providing no-mow zones. Using plant protectants wisely and, as we go forward, doing our best to use less of them.

Green spaces can do so much for us. All we have to do is provide them. They take care of all the good stuff themselves. They are rather self-sufficient. They just need a little TLC.

Here’s a taste of the things green space can do for we humans:

• Provide habitat for animals, insects and other organisms
• Absorb pollutants (trees especially)
• Give off oxygen (again, trees especially)
• Absorb rainwater as well as prevent soil erosion
• Reduce noise pollution (like that wall of Douglas firs at Everett Golf and Country Club) when planted as a shield or a barrier
• Provide a recreational space
• Can be used for growing food
• Raise property values
• Be aesthetically pleasing
• Offer a community gathering place
• Cool us in the summer, heat us in the winter
• Introduce the natural world into the urban environment. This is especially important in densely populated inner cities, where encounters with nature, for many, are not as easy to achieve.

This list could go on for some time. The importance of our little green environments cannot be understated. If you are a superintendent, an assistant superintendent or a crew member on a golf course maintenance team, you are, in some capacity, a steward of your particular green space.

Protect it. Enjoy it. Appreciate it.

Seems simple enough.

Ron Furlong is the golf course superintendent at Avalon Golf Club in Burlington, Washington, and a frequent Golf Course Industry contributor.