Gathering Roots Golf Club: Pt.3

Constructing the most environmentally-positive golf course on Earth
Part 3 (Clubhouse & operations)

Hello again, has it been a week already?

Oh, we haven’t met before. Awkward. Here’s a catch up on Part 1 and Part 2.

I hope you’ve had time to sit and consider the changes we’ve made so far and what could be possible with Gathering Roots in a utopian future where Tiger wins another major. We can only hope for that but I’m sure some previously mentioned practices might have already made it onto your notepads for your next internal meeting. Now, it’s Part 3 and this time we’re looking at the clubhouse, outside facilities, golf shop, and food and beverage. Let’s get started.

Clubhouse

Like the course design, the clubhouse architecture has become a popular investment for recently built clubs to transform themselves into memorable destinations. Take the Tatooine clay huts at King Kamehameha GC by Frank Lloyd Wright or the Megazord Falcon at the Abu Dhabi GC by Peter Harradine, for example. Golf club architecture could be our reboot of Field of Dreams - build it and they will come...to the Friday night roll-up. So, for GRGC, and seeing as we’re just dreaming here, we’re going to commission Antoni Gaudi to miraculously posthumously design our clubhouse. Gaudi drew on many influences from the natural world and his values would align brilliantly with our aims to design and implement sustainable practices. Forest Green Rovers have plans drawn up for their next stadium by Zaha Hadid who focused on the most sustainable materials with it being made mostly out of wood to reduce the production of cement and steel.

For the interior, we’re bringing in Vicky Charles from the Soho House team to establish a modern space with split areas for relaxing, entertaining and working. Working from the golf club is a great facility to offer members, it’s another way you can increase our membership value and food and beverage revenue. It would also be useful to have a few meeting and function rooms to allow for larger indoor gatherings and parties (if they ever return).

Outside Facilities

I’ve outlined this as an area to look at transport links, vehicles and storage. Firstly, if we touch on buggies and trolleys before moving on, I think it would be relatively easy to implement an electric-only collection of rental equipment powered sustainably. Mission Hills are ahead of the game in many sustainability measures, including their fleet of solar-powered buggies. I’m sure the same could be done with rechargeable trolley batteries powered by a suitable source. This is a good way of offsetting emissions, but there is the opportunity to eliminate the associated costs and energy for this equipment. Bandon Dunes has a strict walking policy, meaning that you may only play if you carry your bag or have a medical exemption to use a buggy. Although I like the idea of this in theory, carrying your golf bag is the number one cause of an injured back, so I’d need to consider this a bit further before committing to the policy.

Historically, since the 1800s, golf clubs have been built near to train tracks so that they could be accessed easily. In modern times, other than those prestigious historical courses, the more remote the golf course, supposedly the more desirable it becomes. But what if we were to build a golf facility close to public transport links and accompanied with lockers and bag storage? We could eliminate the need for large car parks and reduce emissions from members, guests and staff all travelling to the facility. We could even consider other options like a local shuttle or park and ride. Think of all the car boots filled up with heavy golf bags and trolleys, well, we could store those bags to increase the engine fuel economy or erase the car journey altogether with alternative transport options. For the RBC Heritage at Harbour Town Golf Links, patrons were able to access the course by bicycle, with bicycle parking located within walking distance of the Harbour Town Clubhouse and the perimeter of the golf course. With the right transport planning and security, there could be a huge reduction in carbon emissions before anyone even tees off on the golf course. I agree there will still be some need for a car park, so to encourage our members to ditch their petrol vehicles, we can install electric vehicle charging points like Dubai Creek and Emirates GC have done with their Green Charger initiative.

Golf Shop

I think I would need another 2000 words to break down what the large club manufacturers are doing to operate sustainably, so for this part, I am going to focus on the soft goods of apparel, balls and tees. They’re the essentials really, take away one of those three and it’s not really golf or legal (unless you’re on the pitch and putt course at Cypress Cove Resort - do not Google this - you’ve been warned). Nike is a dominant force in the sportswear category and has begun their Move To Zero initiative within this past year to reuse waste, creating new products like the Space Hippie line up. Although some of their polo shirts are now made from recycled polyester, the initiative seems to be on larger revenue categories, with no recent focus on golf apparel sustainability.

Adidas Golf has gone a step further with their ongoing partnership with Parley for the Oceans, where in 2016 they began to use ocean-gathered plastic as a material for their shoes. Since then, the relationship has developed to expand a range of Adidas x Parley lifestyle into golf apparel and footwear (as well as other bigger departments). This has now grown to a split between Primeblue (materials created from ocean plastic waste) and Primegreen (products created solely from recycled plastic sources) and pledges to only use recycled polyester from 2024. These are the sort of manufacturers we want on our hangers at GRGC.

Moving on to golf balls, I imagine the traditional goose feather ball was a bit more biodegradable compared to the modern rubber spheres coated in plastic. Even though Acushnet can convert three-quarters of golf ball production waste into energy, once they’re out of the box and onto the course, it is a different issue to deal with. With over 300 million golf balls are discarded across the world every year, Dixon Golf introduced heavy earth salts as a replacement for polluting metal core fillers. Golfers can also return used Dixon balls for a small credit against future purchases that will be repurposed to become artificial turf and playground equipment. If you find yourself spending time wanting to practice your golf swing on large boats, then the Albus EcobioBall is for you. A biodegradable golf ball with a fish food core, I bet Rick Shiels could break par with it. Did I hear you asking for another water-themed company? Okay, here goes. Ocean Tee produces variously-sized bamboo tees which are plastic-free and entirely biodegradable. They’ve recently expanded to a clothing range with organic and recycled materials used for their polos and mid-layers.

Food & Beverage

Looking at the food and beverage operation at GRGC, we are considering a few ideas for implementation including vegan menus, biodynamic agriculture, foraging and zero-waste kitchens. It is well documented that a vegan diet (with suitable supplements) is the healthiest diet and is the most beneficial against climate change. Although veganism comes with its gatekeepers and stigmas, it can be an easy transition from omnivorous diets. The majority of global deforestation is for animal ranching, and so the main aim of veganism is an economic force of reducing demand for farmed meat. I promise this is the last Forest Green Rovers reference, but this change to a vegan matchday menu came with some adjusting, with away fans chanting “Where’s your sausage rolls?”. But justification from FGR Chairman, Dale Vince, was for fans and visitors to try something new as well as outlining the health and environmental benefits.

With a bit more planning and concentration, golf clubs could grow their produce to ensure their ingredients are organic, fresh and in-season. With a suitable growing environment, plenty of herbs, fruits and vegetables could be produced for the kitchen and any excess could be sold on-site to cover some of the operational costs. If veganism is going to be too much to ask of your members, then the answer for your kitchen could be biodynamic agriculture. Free from chemicals, the concept of biodynamic agriculture is to farm organically using the combination of those organisms within it to ensure humane treatment of animals, food quality and soil health. The principles consist of plant diversity, crop rotation, animal life, composting, homoeopathic solutions and life forces. Heckfield Place, a historical estate converted to a sustainable hospitality setting in the past decade, uses biodynamic farming across five acres to produce 90% of the herbs, fruits and vegetables for both of their restaurants, as well as flowers for their rooms.

If you’re not blessed with space for your own farm, but you have a surrounding area full of blossoming plants there is an opportunity to take inspiration from forage-able sources. An example closer to home for me was seeing Matt Edmonds, previously head chef of the Auberge du Lac at Brocket Hall, foraging around the estate for water mint, bark, blackberries, pine needles, elderflower shrubs and wild cherries to accompany his team’s dishes. It’s an inspirational journey from local, natural sources of ingredients and it’s all free to be used sustainably.

A zero-waste kitchen is one that strives to reduce the amount of food and packaging thrown away during the operation. It consists of using most of the produce to keep food costs low, drive staff creativity and encourage customers to experiment with ingredients they may not come across often. Clark Barlowe from Heirloom said that it allows their restaurant to honour the local producers if they use all of their harvest. Max Westphal from the Fairmont Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten has also worked hard with their suppliers to use glass jars instead of plastic bags for delivery and storage, as well as using wooden storage crates that are delivered and returned. Trimmings are used for stocks and sauces, and coffee grounds are collected and given to local producers as fertiliser (something we could help out the agronomy team at GRGC with).

Conclusion

We’ve had another collection of inspirational sources for GRGC listed above, so let’s summarise the practices we’ll be implementing. We will consider the materials used to reduce the production of cement and steel for our clubhouse designed by Antoni Gaudi. Public transport links and shuttles will be considered for members, visitors and staff as well as suitable storage for bikes, clothing and bags to reduce the carbon emitted by individual petrol vehicles. The car park will include electric vehicle charging, as well as its fleet of renewably charged electric buggies and trollies. Our pro shop will only stock the manufacturers who are looking to make a difference including Adidas, Dixon and Ocean Tee. Our clubhouse menus will be vegan in an attempt to improve our diner’s health as well as reduce deforestation. We will produce as much as we can organically onsite and take inspiration from local wild forage-able sources. Our zero-waste kitchen will make the most of these ingredients and we’ll work alongside our suppliers to reduce single-use plastics.

That concludes the three-part series on the construction of Gathering Roots Golf Club. From golf clubs and other businesses around the world, we’ve been able to put together a recreational facility with the principles as environmentally positive as possible and hopefully, inspire the golf industry and other commercial recreational industries to do the same. Golf courses take up 0.5% of the British land area, and as we’re the ones in charge of these areas it would be incredible to implement these small changes and execute the actions regularly to create impact. If you have any other thoughts as to what we could add to Gathering Roots, please comment and let us know. This isn’t the end for GRGC and I hope to bring you more environmentally conscious content in the future.

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