Learn about the process, benefits and rewards of GEO Certification.
Use our A-Z to find facilities around the world that are Registered and Certified.
Golfpark Nuolen
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Certified 12 / 2009
Moon Palace Golf & Spa Resort
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Certified 07 / 2010
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Certified 02 / 2010
Zaanse Golf Club
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Certified 12 / 2009
Forsgårdens Golfklubb
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Certified 05 / 2009
Mirimichi
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Golf Courses & Estate Management Office, Auchterarder
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This On Course™ Report indicates the commitment of Gleneagles PGA Centenary Course to become a GEO Certified facility by January 28th 2013
It has been automatically generated from data submitted to the Golf Environment Organization by Gleneagles PGA Centenary Course. Publication of this data is the first step towards becoming a GEO Certified facility.
To achieve full certification Gleneagles PGA Centenary Course will be required to submit further detailed data and be assessed by a GEO Accredited Verifier against the GEO Certification Criteria. You can download the criteria from this page.
Each section in this report covers a key area of environmentally sound facility management. As defined by the Golf Environment Organization, these are: Nature, Landscape & Heritage, Water, Turf, Waste, Energy, Education & Awareness and Management Planning.
The Gleneagles Estate covers 394ha of moorland, heathland, wetlands & designed landscape. Surrounding landuse is mainly farming & golf. The PGA Centenary Course & Golf Academy take up 104ha of which 76% is natural or semi-natural habitat: grassland, broom, some gorse & broadleaf scrub, diverse woodlands, parkland & veteran trees, willow carr, lochs, ponds, mires, burns, reedbed & marsh.
In 1983, the NCC identified 20 notable, mainly wetland habitat areas across the estate, designating 1 on the King's an SSSI. Gleneagles self-designated the rest (5 on the PGA) as Sites of Scientific Interest (SSIs) & now plans to audit/update this list. The Scottish Inventory of Gardens & Designed Landscapes also cites the estate's outstanding nature conservation value. In 1990, the London-based Golf Course Wildlife Trust described Gleneagles as among the very top golf courses with regard to wildlife interest, due to extent of the site, generous spacing of golf holes & the variety of habitats within & surrounding the estate.
Being a younger course than the King’s & Queen’s, habitats on the PGA are generally less mature. Indigenous acid grasslands with occasional blaeberry in association with a number of basin mires offer valuable heath type habitat at the more natural western end of the course, while the largely sown grasslands across the rest of this modern course means extensive but semi-natural acid/neutral grassland habitat predominates. Removal of invasive scrub & trees has been undertaken to halt natural succession in some wetland areas, while regular broom & gorse management controls encroachment into grasslands, playing & spectator areas. The diverse age, species mix & structure of the woodland resource provides significant habitat value.
Curlews & oystercatchers both nest on the PGA which also provides good habitat for reedbunting, bullfinch & many other bird species. Roe deer abound, & although recent sightings have diminished, brown hare is also recorded.
Gleneagles PGA Centenary Course features areas that are designated or protected at the following levels:
The following ecological surveys have been undertaken:
| Title |
|---|
| Botanical |
| Birds |
| Invertebrates |
| 5 year Quadrat monitoring of botanical changes in heathland and grassland (3 out of 9 quadrats across estate) |
Estimated area of habitats at Gleneagles PGA Centenary Course:
Gleneagles PGA Centenary Course has undertaken the following activities to enhance nature protection:
| Activity |
|---|
| Wildflower sward creation. |
| Tree and woodland management. |
| Supporting Local Biodiversity Action Plan. |
| Grassland creation. |
| Pond and wetland creation/expansion. |
| Pond and wetland management. |
| Grassland management. |
The Gleneagles Estate was listed in the Scottish Inventory of Gardens & Designed Landscapes in 1987 for outstanding nature conservation value, high architectural interest & its James Braid golf courses, before the PGA was built. SNH Tayside Landscape Character Assessment 1999 describes the wider setting as Broad Valley Lowland Hills & Igneous Landscape Types. Surrounding land-uses are Tullibardine Moor (north), settlement (north east), Auchterarder Golf Course (east), A9 road & farmland beyond (south east) & the G-West golf development (west & south west). The PGA & Academy occupy the eastern & southern part of the estate.
The course has stunning views & flows beautifully with the topography. The western part has the same kame, esker & kettlehole geology & topography as The King’s & an intimate feel. The rest has more open, flatter terrain & more expansive holes. The broad effect is of an open landscape of generous grasslands, overlain with diverse woodlands & attractive wetlands of varied landscape impact from vegetated basin mires with glistening pools to reflective expanses of open water.
American styling means some PGA bunkers are rather obtrusive. Reducing or infilling sandy waste bunkers is gradually achieving a more traditional look. Pavilion style Academy & Starter’s Box, modern mansion houses & sycamore-lined Station Road are strong visual features.
Archaeological interest includes Camp Wood, an ancient hill fort. Just off-site are 2 Pictish standing stones. Other historic features are a stone aqueduct & Wester Greenwells, a ruined croft planned for redevelopment as the Halfway House. Beeches Brig, a run of 230 year old beech & oak trees protected by Historic Scotland, lies partly on the PGA.
Holes have evocative & pithy Scots names, eg Gowden Beastie (after designer Jack Nicklaus), Mickle Skelp (Short Strike) & Ca’ Canny (Be Careful). The PGA hosts the Johnnie Walker Championship each year & is the venue for the Ryder Cup 2014.
Gleneagles PGA Centenary Course features the following landscape designations:
Gleneagles PGA Centenary Course features the following cultural heritage designations and protected features:
The following landscape assessments and appraisals been carried out at the site:
| Date | Title |
|---|---|
| 1987-01-01 | Scottish Inventory of Gardens and Designed Landscapes |
The following archaeological and heritage surveys have been carried out at the site:
| Date | Title |
|---|---|
| 1987-01-01 | Scottish Inventory of Gardens and Designed Landscapes |
Gleneagles PGA Centenary Course undertakes the following activities to enhance landscape and cultural heritage:
| Activity |
|---|
| Attention to detail for visual benefit. |
| Landscape considerations at design stage. |
| Visual and amenity enhancement of the playing area. |
| Maintenance of stone-built features in the landscape. |
| Changes to the original design for landscape benefit. |
The Gleneagles Golf Courses & Hotel Grounds use mains & groundwater. Although much is metered, the scale & complexity of the resort hydrology, supply infrastructure & overlap of different departmental operations & metering, means ideal tracking of different components is sometimes constrained. Plans are in hand to improve on this.
Groundwater from lochs topped up from boreholes is used for golf course irrigation & summer machinery washing. Waterbodies are topped up for visual benefit if required. Total abstraction is not metered at present but irrigation is quantified for the different golf courses. Impoundment & Abstraction Licenses are obtained annually from SEPA.
Golf course irrigation accounts for the greatest use. In 2008, which was a wet summer, for The PGA & Academy this totalled 9,348 m3 (including summer machinery washing). This was applied over 2.6ha of greens, tees & foregreens + 2ha fatgrass on The PGA and 0.75 ha of greens at The Academy.
Mains consumption at the PGA Compound in 2008 was 1,445 m3 where it is used for winter machinery washing, spraying, toilets, showers & kitchen use by greenstaff.
| Primary Source | Secondary Source (if used) | |
|---|---|---|
| Clubhouse | N/A | N/A |
| Golf Courses | Groundwater | N/A |
| Accommodation | N/A | N/A |
| Maintenance facility | Public / Potable | Groundwater |
| Other | Public / Potable | N/A |
The following areas are irrigated:
| Area name | Approx. Hectarage |
|---|---|
| Greens | 1 ha |
| Tees | 0.938 ha |
| Fairways | 10 ha |
| Semi-rough | 10 ha |
| Foregreens | 0.7 ha |
| Golf Academy greens | 0.75 ha |
| Fatgrass | 2 ha |
Gleneagles PGA Centenary Course undertakes environmental monitoring of water quality.
| Chemical | Biological | Last Test Date | Tester | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Inflow | No | No | ||
| On-site | Yes | No | 2008-10-02 | Diageo |
| Outflow | No | No |
Gleneagles PGA Centenary Course has undertaken the following activities to conserve / reduce / minimise water consumption:
Gleneagles PGA Centenary Course undertakes the following activities to protect and enhance water quality:
Due both to its role as a professional tournament venue & some of the modern, American-style aspects of its design, turfgrass management on The PGA Centenary Course is considerably more intensive than the King’s and Queen’s Courses. Besides the nutrient & chemical programmes, this means more intensive mowing & clippings removal, greater power & fuel use & higher inputs of sand, water & other resources. However, whilst the context is therefore different, the management philosophy is still to minimise negative environmental impacts & embrace positive environmental opportunities as much as possible.
Although poa predominates on greens & tees in particular, policy is to encourage indigenous bents & fescues throughout fine turf areas for natural resilience.
The aim is to produce hard, firm & free draining surfaces & vigorous grasses to take traffic, golf & buggies better, with good aeration, regular scarification & top dressing being key to achieving this. Greens are cored twice annually & all other mown areas bar semi-rough & managed rough once. Greens are vertidrained 5 times annually, tees, foregreens & fairways twice, & semi-rough once. Greens & foregreens are scarified twice, tees up to 3 times annually & fairways once. Greens are intensively top dressed with pure sand, every ten days between April & September, foregreens & fairways 3 times, & tees 2-4 times annually.
Irrigation policy is minimum water use, but current thatchiness on fairways requires more than is ideal. Wetting agents are used to remove hydrophobia on thatchy fairways.
Gleneagles PGA Centenary Course maintains the following turfgrass species:
Gleneagles PGA Centenary Course regularly undertakes the following practices to improve turf health:
Whereas only greens, tees & foregreens are fed on the Braid courses, all areas of the PGA receive nutrition from greens to managed rough. Clippings are removed from all mown areas. Nitrogen rates for different areas range between 40 & 150 kg/ha/yr; Phosphate between 20 & 50 kg/ha/yr & Potassium between 30 & 200 kg/ha/yr. Greens benefit from a spoonfed nutrient régime incorporating tailored minerals, trace elements & other supplements, which improves efficiency of uptake & promotes healthier, hardier plants which can sustain drought, disease & other stresses better. It also reduces leaching & pollution risk. Wetting agents are used when soil amendments are applied to greens. Soil analysis is done annually, the intention being to increase this to twice per year.
The greenkeeping staff feed the following areas of the golf course:
More pesticides are used on the PGA than the Braid courses but still within an integrated pest management system promoting indigenous grasses, vigorous plants & tight sward density through good aeration & optimum fertiliser & water, to reduce levels of fungicide, herbicide & insecticide required. Greenstaff apply tolerance thresholds to help minimise pesticide use for the required standards of the course. These are set out in a Pest & Disease Tolerance Threshold Matrix for annual review & update.
Generally no herbicide is used on fine turf cut below 8mm. Greens & foregreens are hand plugged. If tees are sprayed, fertiliser is applied to avert dieback. Clover, daisies, plantain, speedwell & yarrow are not tolerated in fine turf or playing roughs. Well timed spot or patch spraying 1-2 times per year to keep populations low avoids the need for widespread control. Ragwort, hogweed & docks in playing roughs, parsley piert on bunker faces & thistles near green & tee complexes are handpulled or cut before seeding. Bracken is occasionally sprayed. Total herbicide use in 2008 was 40 litres of 1 systemic residual product.
Fusarium on greens is the only disease controlled by fungicide. A combination of curative & strategically timed preventative treatments is used to optimise number of sprays overall. A solely curative approach with the less toxic but less effective chemicals available today would probably increase the number of sprays required per year from 7 or 8 to 12. In 2008, treatment involved 7 applications between February & August with a range of products.
Insecticides are used infrequently, mainly against leatherjackets on a localised basis. Greens & foregreens received 1 application in 2008. Infestations can reduce as a consequence of Hydrojecting. Frit fly are sprayed occasionally.
Rabbits are controlled by outside contractors. Moles are trapped by greenstaff. Casting worms are controlled via cultural operations. Crows are tolerated.
Gleneagles PGA Centenary Course keeps detailed records of pesticide application.
Gleneagles PGA Centenary Course undertakes the following activities to minimise / reduce pesticide use:
| Activity |
|---|
| Minimise area of application. |
| Improved drainage, aeration and thatch levels to encourage finer indigenous grasses, improve turf health and reduce disease pressure. |
| Optimise other resource inputs. |
| Optimise spraying programme for greatest efficiency of overall pesticide use. |
| Alternatives to chemcial pest control. |
Waste management operates at resort level with a target of zero to landfill by 2010. A Waste Watchers’ Group drives, monitors & reports on progress. A Waste Audit in 2007 showed that of the 570 tonnes sent to landfill, 40% was recyclable, 35% food waste & 25% other waste types. (Total later revised up by 100 tonnes.)
A recycling compound was built to maximise waste separation for external & charitable recycling. Office recycling boxes & 300 segregating bins are provided for staff, guest & visitor use. Food waste is now recycled off-site. The aim is on-site in-vessel composting, ideally incorporating electricity generation.
All grass clippings, horticultural & most other green waste is composted at a local commercial facility. In 2008, of 156 tonnes green waste composted, 44 tonnes was from The PGA. The resultant product is bought back for horticultural uses & groundworks round the estate (83 tonnes in 2008). Some bark & corings are reused on site. Gorse debris is burnt on SEPA approved sites. The ash waste from the hotel’s biomass boiler is mixed with the green compost for use in flowers beds & other garden uses.
Purchasing policy has also been tightened to increase sustainable sourcing.
Wastewater management varies with its origin. The natural wetland system discharges to a burn. Course drainage is recycled back into the wetland system. As much storm water as possible is detained in lochs & ponds, & surplus discharged to exit ponds just beyond the A9.
PGA washbay water is cleaned by oil/petrol & grass filters & discharged to a SEPA licenced soakaway.
Domestic sewage from the PGA Compound goes to a septic tank linked to the estate’s internal sewage system for treatment at Gleneagles’ private sewage plant. The plant is managed by an outside agency & strictly regulated & licensed by SEPA. The plant aims to become self-sufficient for power by installing wind turbines & for cleaning-water by harvesting & storing rainwater in an unused sewage tank.
| Avoid | Re-use | Recycle | Landfill | Incineration | Registered Uplift | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Glass | No | No | Yes | No | No | No |
| Plastic | No | No | Yes | No | No | No |
| Aluminium | No | No | Yes | No | No | No |
| Metal | No | No | Yes | No | No | No |
| Paper | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
| Cardboard | No | No | Yes | No | No | No |
| Electrical | No | No | Yes | No | No | No |
| Grass Clippings | No | No | Yes | No | No | No |
| Cores | No | Yes | No | No | No | No |
| Turf | No | Yes | No | No | No | No |
| Sand | No | Yes | No | No | No | No |
| Wood / Timber | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
| Leaves | No | No | Yes | No | No | No |
| Detergents | No | No | No | No | No | Yes |
| Cooking Oils | No | No | No | No | No | Yes |
| Lubricants | No | No | No | No | No | Yes |
| Pesticide Containers | No | No | No | No | No | Yes |
| Fertiliser Bags | No | No | No | No | No | Yes |
| Oil Filters | No | No | No | No | No | Yes |
| Batteries | No | No | No | No | No | Yes |
Gleneagles PGA Centenary Course has secure storage for hazardous material.
Gleneagles PGA Centenary Course has undertaken a waste audit:
2007-08-14 - Clare Wooton, Business Environment Partnership
| Discharges to: | Legally Compliant? | Formal Discharge Agreement | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Clubhouse | No | N/A | |
| Accommodation | No | N/A | |
| Maintenance Facility | Septic Tank | Yes | N/A |
| Wash Pad | Via Oil Separator | Yes | Waste Water Wash Pad Formal Discharge Arrangement |
Gleneagles PGA Centenary Course undertakes the following activities to reduce resource consumption or minimise waste:
With energy becoming an ever more crucial issue & energy costs expected to rise substantially, energy management & carbon awareness have become resort-wide matters of increasing urgency. Gleneagles aims to improve its energy performance & become carbon neutral by 2010, which it will measure through Diageo’s worldwide carbon accounting system. It will pursue this mainly through improved energy efficiency & alternative/renewable sources.
The Action Energy Group are taking steps towards positive energy management & being alert to the full range of activities & operations which involve energy usage. Posters have been produced & located throughout the resort to encourage staff & visitors to close doors to prevent draughts & heat escaping, switch off lights & equipment when not in use, run dishwashers on full load, choose energy efficient models when ordering new appliances, etc.
While greenkeeping operations inevitably involve significant fuel use, moreso on the PGA than the Braid courses, adoption of a 3-5 year machinery replacement programme & regular servicing & maintenance helps significantly with fuel efficiency on the golf courses & estate. Composite fuel use is evaluated when selecting combined or multiple machinery options.
A series of Energy Reports have been done by the Carbon Trust for the hotel & associated operations. They broadly identify good housekeeping measures as the main way of reducing energy consumption. In 2007, a woodchip biomass boiler was installed in the hotel for heating & hot water. Future ideas on renewables include electricity generation from on-site in-vessel food composting & windpower for the resort’s sewage treatment plant.
To date no formal energy or carbon evaluation has been done for the Golf Courses & Estate, which it is hoped to remedy. The resort keeps monthly energy consumption records but Golf Courses & Estates is introducing new recording & monitoring Worksheets to help improve departmental awareness & progress.
Gleneagles PGA Centenary Course has undertaken an Energy Audit:
- Carbon Trust 2003, 2005, 2008
Activities undertaken to record energy consumption:
Activities undertaken to reduce energy consumption:
Green purchasing activities undertaken:
Departments involved in energy saving activities:
Employees of Gleneagles PGA Centenary Course receive the following formal and informal environmental education:
Gleneagles PGA Centenary Course keeps formal staff training records for these departments:
Gleneagles PGA Centenary Course keeps the following record of accidents in the workplace:
Gleneagles PGA Centenary Course undertakes the following internal environmental communications:
Gleneagles PGA Centenary Course undertakes the following external environmental communications:
Gleneagles PGA Centenary Course works with the following external groups:
Sustainability Policy 2009.pdf
Gleneagles PGA Centenary Course has an Environmental Management Plan covering:
Gleneagles PGA Centenary Course has an environmental working group, comprising the following individuals/organisations:
