The Grass Expert: James T. Snow

What about artificial surfaces? Any future for golf? They're low-maintenance, don't need pesticides, chemicals, water.
It certainly is possible to do this. But installing and maintaining artificial surfaces can be very expensive. Plastic can get very hot, and for a whole fairway that would be unbearable. So now you have to install a cooling system. They have algae problems, so you're out there spraying anyway. They have wear problems. For golf it's not going to happen soon.

Do you think pesticides are OK if they're used correctly?
Well, you'd rather not have any if you had a choice, but you're not going to have a golf course if you don't use some. We've done all this research on pesticides and nutrients, and we've found that if you do it the right way, the effect is really minimal, benign. If you do it the wrong way, it can be disastrous. And everything in between. So the key is to get people educated to do it the right way. We're working with the GCSAA and others to come up with a characterization of the pesticides that we use. Because some are benign, they degrade quickly; they don't really have any impact on anything. And then there are some that are really nasty. We just pick the one that we think works the best, without necessarily knowing that one could be better for the environment than another. Pesticides today certainly are a lot better than they were 10 or 20 or 30 or 40 years ago. Oh my gosh, back in the '20s they literally cured dollar spot. They eliminated dollar spot from golf courses. But they used mercury, cadmium and lead arsenic to do it. How do you like that? All you had to do back in the 1960s was put chlordane on the greens and you wouldn't have an insect problem for 25 years. [Note: All uses of chlordane were banned by the EPA in 1988.]

How about water use -- how do you justify the massive amounts needed for irrigation when there's such a shortage of clean water?
Well, you know, golf is a $65 billion industry in this country. Now there are plants that make little plastic toys for kids. And they use a huge amount of water to do that. Is there any difference? They make cars -- that uses huge amounts of water. We're sitting on furniture that required water to be made. Think about it: Industries are industries, and they all use water, and they all use fuel. Golf just happens to be apparent. Visible. You can't dismiss a $65 billion industry.

Right. But water shortages are a huge problem.
Sure it's a problem. It's a problem anyplace you have drought. Georgia typically has a lot of rain, but the last two years they've had a severe drought. And it can be that way in any part of the country. I was visiting golf courses in California one summer in the late '70s when a horrible drought occurred. They cut off the watering of golf courses except for a little bit on greens and fairways. The roughs were totally gone, literally no grass, not even weeds. Nothing would grow. They had had six months with no rain at all. Drinking water was declining badly. So it really got us to start thinking about it, and in 1983 we decided to take a look at these environmental issues, and we established the Turfgrass Research Committee. And we've guided the research since that time. We've developed all these grasses that can be tolerant of drought and heat and salt and require far less fresh water.

There's a lot that can be done to improve water use. In the Southwest, I'd say they're doing a really good job. They do the best they can. They're increasingly using effluent water. Irrigating less and irrigating smarter. Switching to better grasses. But it's a problem. People are continuing to live in places like Las Vegas. How many million people live in the desert today? And more every day. And with the water, it's just going to implode. It can't go on. The aquifer is declining. Unless some miracle happens, people will have to leave those areas. There will be no water.

And when that happens, golf will be the least of anybody's concern.
That's right. It's going to happen in Phoenix and Tucson and Las Vegas and all those places, because people aren't going to have water. It's just going to get worse and worse. Water will be the key issue for most of our country for a long time.