Modern technology and analysis in golf course management help superintendents save money and budget more effectively.
At a time when golf courses are operating on fewer dollars but must continue to deliver quality conditions with agronomic stability, tracking as much data as possible is critical for making the right decisions and creating effective budgets. With today’s rising costs, coupled with increased player expectation for a quality golf experience, it is important for superintendents to know the business of running their courses on a daily basis and to recognize trends in order to maintain quality and to control costs.
Conservation of water, energy and manpower, especially with the rising price of commodities, has never been more critical at a six-course club like Desert Mountain which uses 400,000 lbs. of seed and 600,000 lbs. of fertilizer annually and is the largest user of reclaimed water in the metro Phoenix-Scottsdale area.
Emerson created a comprehensive records system to track the water, seed and fertilizer usage by tweaking the existing technology in order to gather and merge analytics that would determine soil moisture, water flow, electricity usage and reclaimed lake levels. By taking this course of action, the facility has also been able to begin reducing its footprint on the land as no decision is made here without considering the indigenous plants and wildlife that make this property home.
By partnering with existing and new vendors, like IBM, Rainbird, Microcom, Arizona Public Service (utilities), UgMo and Element Blue, Desert Mountain is well on its way to seeing a 5-10 percent energy savings, 20 percent reallocation of reclaimed water to other areas of the property and a 50 percent time savings for the irrigation manager.