USGA’s new water-conservation guide dispels golfer misperceptions

The USGA helps write the Rules of Golf. But that’s not the only publication to its credit. 

On Thursday, the governing body released another deeply researched book, and while it won’t likely make The New York Times Best Sellers list, it is a must-read for anyone who cares about the future of the game. 

Its title is the “Water Conservation Playbook,” a dry name for a work awash in scientific detail.

“Golf is currently in a time of great growth, but the threat of water availability and cost, combined with changing weather patterns, poses long-term threats to our playing fields,” USGA CEO Mike Whan said in a statement. “We want to put the best intelligence in the hands of those who are making decisions and working on courses every day, and spur innovation toward a more sustainable game.”

Water is hardly a new topic for the USGA. Since the birth of its Green Section in 1920, the governing body has invested more than $40 million into turf-related research, much of its aimed at reducing water use. Those efforts have led to a flood of advances in everything from drought-tolerant grasses to irrigation technologies and techniques. Among the USGA’s sustainably minded initiatives is a campaign known as 15/30/45, through which it has committed $30 million over the next 15 years to help courses reduce their water use by 45 percent.

The “Water Conservation Playbook” is a key component of that campaign.

A digital publication, it combines a century-plus of Green Section expertise with findings from top universities as well as the insights of superintendents, architects, and golf-course maintenance workers, distilling a wealth of information into a blueprint for action.

As much as those plans are driven by science, they also touch on the culture of the game and how to best communicate with the people who play it. Maintaining a golf course, after all, isn’t just about managing turf. It also involves managing golfer expectations, which often are at odds with efficient water use.

For myriad reasons, many golfers are keen to see their courses kept Augusta National-green. Green, of course, is the natural, healthy state of many grasses. There’s nothing necessarily bad about it. But nor is green necessarily better. This is a crucial point with profound implications for the industry. In their understandable quest to please their market, many courses wind up irrigating more than what their turf requires. They prioritize a lush green look at the expense of efficient water use.

Not only does that come at an economic and environmental cost. It can also be a detriment to course conditions — the irony being that healthier turf and better playing surfaces can often be achieved by watering less.

Doing that, though, requires buy-in from golfers. 

“There are a lot of misperceptions out there — that playing on a lush golf course is better, or brown is the new green, and using less water ruins the playing experience,”  says Matt Pringle, managing director of the USGA Green Section. “But none of those are true.”

Dispelling those myths depends in part on effective messaging, and the “Water Conservation Playbook” gets into that, too, offering courses guidance on how to communicate with golfers before, during and after their rounds on factors that might affect their experience, ranging from drought to maintenance projects aimed at conserving water in the long term.

Because not all properties are created equal — budgets vary, as do climate, grass types and clientele — the “Water Conservation Playbook,” Pringle notes, is “not a one-size-fits all approach — there are strategies that every golf course can use.”

The guidelines it lays out calls for the industry to continue adapting to the challenges ahead. As that happens, golfers should expect to do the same. 

You may download the Water Conservation Playbook here.