Stakeholders

Sometimes a huge issue with the turf grass industry, be it golf, sod, or lawn care, thiere is always a stakeholder that does not agree with your opperations.

With golf courses, on stakeholders that give a lot of grief are the neighbors, in most cases there is a by-law that is in affect if there are residential neighbors. This by-law states that no noise before 7:00AM, this effects the course because most courses have a start time of 5:00am – 6:30am. Using gas powered engines will not work with this by-law. Also another issue that could present a issue is golf balls leaving the property and causing damage to neighbors property. These stakeholders can create issues that can be settled outside of court, or as in the case of Islington Golf Club. A 80 foot high fence was constructed to stop golf balls from leaving the property. The fence was erected on a court order which was carried out by the neighbor of the course.

The way I feel these problems could be by passed with looking into electric mowers, they do not provide as much power and speed as gas driven mowers. They do however have lower maintenance, less noise pollution, and less anxiety about fuel and hydraulic leaks. There are two ways to avoid golf balls leaving your property. First is to put sand traps or other obstacles near the property line to persuade the golfers from hitting there. The other way is to erect a fence with a net on it to catch the balls. The bottom line is, do whatever it takes to make your stakeholders happy.

Under Construction

One of the biggest problems with having a construction project is permits. Permits are one of t he biggest hurdles to get over when undergoing construction. There are many different permits needed for many things. In a golf course a permit could be needed to cut down trees, such as in Lampton Golf and Country Club. Permits can be a long drawn out task that can take from one week to over a year.

Permits take up a lot of  time. A way this process can be sped up would be if you have followed rules in the past and kept a good relationship with the city. Lampton developed this relationship with the city by always following the by-laws set in th area where they are located. Through this process a trusting relationship was developed between Lampton and city officials. Permits could also be sped up with arangments, such as if you wanted to cut down 200 trees so be it, but you must replace those trees two fold.

To be honest, permits are a good thing. Without permits who knows what some companies might be doing with our enviroment. Sure they are a huge hassle and take up a lot of time need for other activities, but in the end a permit not only helps out the enviroment in some way, but also the user from getting in some trouble.

The Pesticide Battle

On April 22, 2009 bill 64 went into effect(http://www.golfsupers.com/Content/NavigationMenu/DownloadableDocuments/IssuesInfo/Environment/Updatetoclubs-Apr109.pdf). Bill 64 is a ban on all cosmetic pesticides except on golf courses. Bill 64 put into the effect of restrictions on the pesticides they could use. These restrictions could prove for a very tough next 5-10 years for golf courses and athletic fields alike.  

Bill 64 will affect not only the golf supers but also the golfers. Lowering the amount of pesticides that the golf courses can use will also lower the quality of playing. Without the pesticides being used the turf industry will have to look for other less effective means of eradicating the weeds from the playing field. These methods might include overseeding http://golf.about.com/cs/golfterms/g/bldef_overseed.htm which is very costly and not very labour effective, therefore raising the green fees. Overseeding is the only known viable replacment for pesticides as of right now.

 Bill 64 is a good thing, in the long run. For right now the bill could not come at a worse time. Having to change the methods to extinguish the weeds in the middle of one of the worst financial fiascos since the 1930s is completely ridiculous. The methods that must be used as an alternative to pesticides are much more costly in not only direct cost but also in labour cost for both the supplier and the costumer. Bill 64 has its ups and its downs, but bill 64 just does not have the right timing.