The golfers you see on many area courses, bouncing across fairways in motorized carts, are looking for birdies, all right. But only the kind that will enhance a scorecard.
Most are not exactly the type who would whoop it up over spotting a whooping crane.
So it seems something of an incongruity that the group that perhaps more than any other has taken bird-watching–as well as preservation of the natural world–to the highest intellectual heights is trying to become partners with the golf world.
And though nobody’s requiring that golfers carry binoculars, the American Audubon Society is saying that it has taken the first step toward making that most suburban bit of landscape–in the worst cases, sterile swaths of chemically sodden grass–environmentally friendly.
As a result, prairies, marshes and forests are blossoming at seven Chicago-area golf courses that have been certified as part of the Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary System.
Those groundskeepers are discovering that being green requires more than just having acres of satin-smooth turf and that wild creatures are something other than duffers who have cavorted too long at the 19th hole.
For a $100 fee, the Audubon Society offers golf course managers advice on conservation, habitat protection, water recycling and safe use of chemicals. The program assists groundskeepers with conservation advice and then honors courses that meets Audubon’s standards.
“Not every place can be a (forest) preserve. And in an urban area, golf courses are some of the last remaining open space,” said Ruth Hecht, ecologist for the Audubon Society of New York, which certifies qualifying courses as Audubon Cooperative Sanctuaries.
“We have to learn to work with development, and how we (do that) and still be good stewards of the land is a challenge,” she said.
The seven Audubon-certified Illinois courses are the Aurora Country Club; Cantigny Golf Club, Wheaton; Countryside Golf Course, Libertyville; the Ivanhoe Club, Mundelein; the Olympia Fields Golf Club; the St. Charles Country Club; and the Village Links of Glen Ellyn.
There are 65 Audubon-certified courses nationwide, including The Links at Spanish Bay, in Pebble Beach, Calif.; and the Robert Trent Jones Golf Club in Manassas, Va. (one of President Clinton’s haunts).
The Audubon Society program, which began in 1991, is winning attention from environmental groups who commend the efforts and wish even more could be done to lessen the chemicals used on crisply tailored fairways.
“We think it would be terrific if (the idea) spread to more golf courses,” said Bruce Boyd, director of the Illinois chapter of the Nature Conservancy. “It provides good habitat for plants and animals, reduces the use of herbicides and pesticides, and it is aesthetically pleasing.”
Jay Feldman, executive director of the National Coalition Against the Misuse of Pesticides, gives the golf industry credit for trying to be more environmentally sensitive, but at the same he cautioned, “They are still using some very toxic chemicals, and that ought to be phased out.”
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The advantages to the golf club are many, say promoters, not the least of which is the creation of a positive image to counter critics who say that golf courses provide little in the way of habitat for wildlife and use too much in the way of fertilizers and pesticides.
“From our standpoint . . . we’ve felt that golf has a beneficial impact on the environment; however, that is not a universal viewpoint,” said Marty Parkes, a spokeswoman for the United States Golf Association, which encourages participation in the Audubon program.
With Audubon certification, he said, “people can point to a golf course as a place for wonderful environmental programs.”
Perhaps equally important is the benefit that goes right where it can be felt most–on the bottom line.
Golf course owners say that depending upon the course, the weather and the kinds of plants used, they save money and energy by using fewer chemicals and by not mowing the roughs. In addition, the use of drought-hardy native plants helps cut down on water consumption, which can be voluminous on 18-hole courses that average 200-plus acres.
The average savings in chemical costs ranges from 15 percent to 20 percent, Parkes estimated. But officials for Ivanhoe said they have reduced pesticide use by a whopping 90 percent.
“We no longer spray for mosquitoes; the birds take care of them. Last year I only sprayed once for pests,” said Eric Foerster, assistant superintendent at Ivanhoe.
In return for the birds’ pest control, golf managers set up birdhouses for nesting. Especially welcome are purple martins, bluebirds, bats and wood ducks.
Other birds have also been found setting up housekeeping on the grounds, including egrets, cranes, hawks and owls.
Two owls, for example, have taken over an abandoned nest 50 feet from one of the fairways at the Cantigny Golf Club in Wheaton.
“They are making a living just fine here, and a lot of that is due to the naturalized areas on the golf course,” said superintendent Scott Witte.
At the Lake County Forest Preserve District, officials said that entering their Countryside Golf Course in the Audubon program dovetailed naturally with the district’s conservation mission. The course received its Audubon certification last month.
From 15 percent to 20 percent of the course is in maintenance-free native plantings, and it is ringed with more than two dozen bluebird houses.
It is better than “having wall-to-wall grass that we have to maintain,” said Tom Morgensen, superintendent of golf courses for the district.
The district was so pleased with the program at Countryside that officials want to create a specially designed Audubon course on land it owns in far north suburban Beach Park.
Officials hope that when it is finished in a couple of years Beach Park will win certification as a signature Audubon course. For that, the entry fee is $4,500, but well worth it, said director Dan Prezell, if the district gets a course that saves environmental resources and saves money.
And how do golfers feel about all of this?
At Cantigny, sometime golfer Sabeeha E. Corso, who is also co-chairman of the local Audubon volunteer committee, noted that players whose balls stray into the roughs are challenged by the knee-high vegetation because it makes the ball harder to hit.
But Corso does not complain: “I usually just pick mine up and throw it back.”