Visitors to Neshanic Valley Golf Course find themselves immersed in nature. Andrew Hojnowski, whose title is director of golf course maintenance, is as committed to safeguarding the environment as he is to providing quality playing conditions.
“I don’t know a superintendent that doesn’t care about the environment and doesn’t do everything they can to make their golf course as environmentally friendly as possible,” he says.
For the past decade, Audubon International has designated Neshanic Valley, located in Neshanic Station, New Jersey, 25 miles north of Trenton and 50 miles west of midtown Manhattan, as a Certified Cooperative Sanctuary and wildlife, including deer, foxes and coyotes, is abundant — on the golf course proper, on the adjacent open space that is part of the property and in the river that flows through the site, the latter much to the delight of Hojnowski, an avid trout fisherman.
“(Becoming Audubon certified) took a lot of work, but I really enjoy enhancing the environment for everything,” Hojnowski says. “For the wildlife, for the water, for the plant life, for the bees, the pollinators.”
There are no beehives on the property, but the insects are frequent and welcome visitors. “I don’t know if we will ever have them on this property,” Hojnowski says, “but at least three of our neighbors have them right adjacent to the property.”
Concern for the environment is a top priority at Neshanic Valley, as it is at most golf facilities. If that means postponing an application of fertilizer or fungicide because rain is in the forecast, so be it.
“You look at the weather and only spray your chemicals on days when it’s not going to rain for the next 24 hours, and things like that,” Hojnowski says. “You don’t apply fertilizer before an inch of rain is about to fall or you don’t apply fertilizers in the winter because they run off. It seems like such a simple concept, but most people don’t know what we go through to make these places as good for the environment as we do.”
Read more about Neshanic Valley Golf Course in the April edition of Golf Course Industry.