The pursuit of sustainable golf practices would appear to fit superintendent Kevin Malloy hand-in-glove. Yes, his golf course operation at the TPC Colorado, located between Denver and Fort Collins, recently earned GEO Certified status from the GEO Sustainable Golf Foundation. And yes, he’s surprisingly excited about the prospect of leveling every single irrigation head on his golf course come 2025, achieving a reduction in water demand by as much as 10 to 12 percent.
But more broadly, and in his defense, he also thinks the whole idea of sustainable golf dovetails with the way good superintendents think — the way they’ve always thought.
“Ultimately, GEO is highlighting what golf courses have been doing for two decades and not getting credit for,” Malloy says. “The most important part is every year going forward we can sit down, assess and make sure we are trending in the right direction. Honestly, there never is an endpoint with sustainability.
“Now that we’re certified and all those benchmarks are in place, we can move toward less and less impact on the environment, alongside providing the best possible playing conditions. And honestly, superintendents already think this way. It’s like, ‘Is your golf course ever perfect?’ No, but that does not change the goals.”
GEO Sustainable Golf Foundation is an international not-for-profit based in North Berwick, Scotland. The programs it provides for golf are today being used in more than 75 countries. Founded more than 18 years ago as a pioneer in what has become the sport and sustainability movement, GEO is dedicated to helping golf navigate sustainability across the amateur and professional game by providing strategies, industry-wide solutions and a credible certification label.
Some environmental programs concentrate singularly on the golf course, while GEO Certified is something an entire golf course operation can achieve.
“That is what I love about the GEO program; it brings that attitude to our whole operation. Is there more opportunity to use local farms in terms of food & beverage — because the less food has to travel, the less gas we use?” Malloy says. “Of course. But the fresher the food, the better the product. We have gone the same way with our brands in the pro shop: We look to local suppliers and vendors to help minimize our global eco-footprint. Obviously, you can’t do that with something like golf carts. But we’ve had lithium battery carts from Day 1.
“The first time through certification is really about the benchmarking, for everything — to see where we are. You have to get on a scale to know how weight loss is going, you know? Now we are poised to improve. That is the real benefit, 100 percent. Improvement might get slower and more incremental, but this process is never complete. Being GEO Certified gives us a framework to really take things to the next level.”
The Foundation is dedicated to what it calls “a comprehensive, credible and innovative approach to sustainability, via tailored platforms available to golf courses and facilities, including programs for renovation and new development.” It also partners with national and regional golf associations, professional tours and tournaments, even professional players as individuals.
In fact, the PGA Tour promotes and fosters a substantive sustainability commitment across its operations and tournaments, in addition to its network of TPC facilities.
“Ultimately, the support we receive from the TPC network and the PGA Tour helps us to accomplish these goals,” Malloy says. “Within the network, we have the full support from above to accomplish these initiatives, which is very important. Going about these processes without that support or third-party evaluation allows people to sometimes make self-justifications, much like a diet where you say, ‘Well, I can have one candy bar; that’s not the end of the world.’ But those self-justifications defeat the purpose. Having that support makes it more appealing to undertake these tasks because you don’t feel as if you are going at it alone.”
It’s free to be part of the sustainability movement: Course facilities are encouraged to sign up and populate key sustainability data as part of what GEO calls the OnCourse program, which sits at the heart of the stakeholder-led, not-for-profit sustainable golf system. Using the cloud-based app and participating in this global, online community comes at no charge. How a superintendent ties in from there — whether to seek GEO Certified, for example — which does come with a price tag and a 3-year commitment — or annual scorecards and planners, or carbon footprint metrics, is entirely up to the facility staff.
In the case Malloy and his staff, they went all-in.
“Because we are in the high desert, water is so important,” says Malloy, who arrived at TPC Colorado in 2022. “We have done a lot of things in that area. We have dropped our average water consumption by 25 acre-feet just by deploying different management practices. But what are the next steps to minimize water usage? I mean, is there a chance to expand native no-mow areas? Is there an opportunity to decrease our diesel usage? It is never-ending. In a good way.”
Talking to Malloy about sustainability requires segmentation. There’s a great deal he has already achieved at this 18-hole, Arthur Schaupeter design. But then, there is a whole raft of ideas Malloy has developed about what to do next — much of it enabled by the report issued alongside his GEO Certified in May 2024.
To cite just one example: nitrogen.
“The first year, there is a lot of low-hanging fruit,” Malloy says. “We used an average of 2-plus pounds of Nitrogen per 1,000 square feet. I’m quite sure we can go down to 1.5 next year. That’s a significant impact — 25 percent reduction. In the future, I do not know if I can do another 25 percent — so maybe we go for 5 percent.
“We’re testing autonomous mowers this year: electric, no fuel, no blowers or noise impact,” Malloy says. “We’re using one to maintain the practice facility, which is fairly large: 15 acres. Basically, it’s doing everything but the tee top. We have another that maintains the 6-acre clubhouse area. So, that’s a significant amount of turf.
“Down the road, honestly, the thing I see out of them? They are cleaner. But if these areas are mowed more frequently, the water usage will be less because your coverage is more consistent.”
Wait, what? Why?
“Because it’s being mowed more frequently at a consistent height. Say we mow on a Monday. We get back to it the following Monday, when a 2-inch rough stand is now a 3-inch rough stand. If we do not do it consistently, it’s 3.5 inches, and that will impact sprinkler heads, knocking down some water, which is wasteful. So, the more consistent we are, the less irrigation we use.”
So, that’s on the docket for 2025?
“Well, not so fast. I’m not a scientist, so I have no quantifiable studies. But the tech is there or soon will be there to quantify that sort of impact.”
GEO Certified courses are not, in fact, certified by the Foundation itself. Instead, a separate arm of the organization makes the determination, based on essential findings from independent verifiers who visit the property. At TPC Colorado, that independent verifier was Will Flemming. His report is quite positive, bordering on effusive.
Yet Flemming also offered up several ideas for continual improvement: “Holes 1 & 14 have a cross zone with managed turfgrass that is unplayable,” the report reads. “Please consider converting the turfgrass in this area to a more indigenous terrain. This will help to reduce water and fertilization needs.”
Here, the GEO verifier illustrates an essential aspect of the certification ethos: Understand where you’re at, make sure you’re meeting the standard and commit to a plan to do more before re-certification in three years.
Prior to any certification, applicants upload facility-wide information including best practices and annual data via the OnCourse system. Newly upgraded in November 2024, this online data system encourages superintendents and club managers to gather specific information related to sustainability across the facility. It also enables the neat, clean and secure storage of all that data, in a single place.
There is no charge for OnCourse usage, and plenty of supers are content with this level of engagement. Their interaction with OnCourse and all the information at Sustainable.Golf invariably leads to information exchange with other superintendents on the path to sustainability, worldwide. And there are thousands, spread around 75 different countries.
“We’ve worked to provide a credible, comprehensive sustainable golf pathway, which includes certification,” says Jonathan Smith, executive director of GEO Sustainable Golf Foundation. “And there is more to it as well. Many superintendents and greenkeepers also benefit from the community around Sustainable.Golf. The shared information, success stories and data inform and inspire others. Whether or not they pursue GEO Certified, they can still take advantage of the guidance, annual reports and the broader network of support.”
Malloy’s first GEO Certified report has enabled him to compare and contrast what he’s doing on the sustainability front with hundreds of course-maintenance peers around the world. Equally important, however, is that it has encouraged Malloy to think about what not to do — and to gin up the courage to deviate from rules of thumb he’s sworn by for years.
“This winter, I look forward to really sitting down and looking at every single agronomic input in our plan and asking, ‘What are we getting out of this? Is it necessary or we’ve just always done it that way?’ That’s the kind of thing that’s gonna challenge guys and make us better as an industry.
“Let’s say that, over 30 weeks in a season, we average one application a week. Are all of them necessary, or are two or three of them just ‘comfort apps?’ What are we doing out of habit? We’re all creatures of that. Can we allow ourselves to say, ‘We used to make this application in May because it made us feel good. But what if we didn’t?’ We are going to try that in May (2025) and see if there’s any negative impact. My theory is no, there won’t be. And we will take that step on fairways, where it’s a safer bet. If it doesn’t work out, we can undo it quickly.
“I think dialing into everything in our schedule is going to be hugely beneficial. We irrigate assuming a 65 percent evapotranspiration replacement of loss. Can we drop that to 55-60 and see no negative impact? We’ll be looking at every little thing, because there’s another benefit to all these reductions: minimizing your budget, which helps everything else in an operation.”
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