With last weeks's heavy flooding in Nashville and a pesky 17th green surrounded by water at the Players Championship in Florida all over TV this weekend, the shortage of water may not be at the top of every golfer's mind. But for many golf courses in Southern California, Nevada, Arizona and the dry Southwest, it's an existential threat. For others, even when water is abundant, maintaining wall-to-wall greensward in impeccable shape is creating a heavy and unnecessary financial burden. Verdant courses require more mowing, more chemicals to prevent weeds and disease, more general tweaking and fluffing and more days of those dreaded words: "cart path only."
"In my opinion, many of the standards by which we construct and maintain our courses have become, quite simply, unsustainable," Mr. Hyler said. "With the recent economic downturn, focus on these critical issues has sharpened. If we are not careful, high construction costs, soaring maintenance budgets, and declining membership rosters will threaten the survival of many courses and clubs."
He called for a "reset" in the way golfers look at and think about courses, with "playability" replacing aesthetics as the primary consideration. Playability, he said, "should include concepts of firm, fast, and yes, even brown, and allow the running game to flourish. We need to understand how brown can become the new green."
Brown isn't a popular concept in most clubhouses I visit, but fun certainly is. One of the main points Mr. Hyler made in an interview this week was that firm, fast courses are more fun to play than soft, overwatered ones. Drives roll out farther. Approach shots into greens can, at the player's option, scoot along the ground and bank off contours designed by the architects.
Green looks great on television, Mr. Hyler acknowledged, but that's a major cause of the problem: televised golf distorts expectations. "Most people don't realize that the courses on TV are manicured to peak for that one week. Even they don't look that way all the time," he said. "There's nothing wrong with a little brownish tint to the fairways or some less-than-pristine conditioning. The last 20% of the maintenance budget at most clubs goes for appearance only."
