Development Team Roles

The best golf projects are based on teamwork. Building strong professional working relationships between all individuals and organisations involved, with everyone working toward a common vision and goals, will maximize the project's potential.

Implementing sustainability works best with a fully integrated project team from conception and planning, through design, construction, and management. The developer should involve a wider range of professional expertise than is often currently practised, including the employment of sustainable development specialists.

Crucially, all professionals must be engaged early enough in the process to ensure that their inputs, insights and solutions are maximized. An experienced project manager working on a sustainability-focused project should harness the innovative inputs of the following team roles:

Sustainability adviser

Unique to sustainable development, the appointment of an experienced sustainability advisor can provide early-stage, strategic and practical insight into the opportunities and constraints of the development site and give constructive input to team discussions on the sustainability of master plans, conceptualised layouts and detailed design proposals. This role also helps ensure that a balance of hard and soft technological solutions is integrated efficiently.

The value of putting a project on a firm sustainability foundation from the start — aligning the development concept with government policy and local community aspirations — can’t be overemphasized. The work of the sustainability advisor can also be leveraged through communications, helping to effectively manage contentious issues and mapping a comprehensive, cohesive and proactive sustainability blueprint. This small initial investment can pay big dividends down the road.

Market and financial advisor

Development partners are acutely aware that it is not a good time to invest in resource-hungry golf developments with poor public relations. For these reasons, it is important to let social and environmental issues inform the project’s business model. A good market and financial advisor will be able to work alongside a sustainability advisor to factor in and quantify the monetary value of resource efficiencies and a high-quality product.

Masterplanner

A sound understanding of the area’s cultural and natural capital is the best starting point for all aspects of site planning from spatial planning to physical mapping and zoning of development areas. This role is about getting the very best out of the site, physically matching the development to the land, and conceptualising a product that has a strong and unique aesthetic and cultural connection to its surroundings.

The masterplanner creates a framework for the development and sets the tone in which engineering solutions can be kept to a minimum to maximize sustainability. A focus on function and form can help to lighten the overall footprint of the development and create a harmonious, environmentally integrated product.

Architect

New architectural design philosophies can reduce the immediate and long-term environmental footprint of buildings. An architect focused on sustainability will employ green building principles to create healthy indoor spaces that are also highly energy and water efficient.

A high-quality clubhouse that functions effectively to meet customer needs, that integrates the principles of passive design and is backed by the latest technological advances will be a long-term asset to any development. This harmony of function, form and technology will future-proof your buildings and reduce your bottom line.

The profitability gains from eco-friendly buildings can be significant. Research cited by the US Green Building Council highlights the value of green buildings. They consume far fewer resources throughout their lifetime, specifically, 25 to 50 per cent less energy; 30 to 40 per cent less carbon dioxide emissions, 40 per cent less water use, and 70 per cent less solid waste. Further, green buildings, on average, have a 7.5 per cent higher market value than regular buildings.

Golf architect

Some of the most valuable environmental enhancements in golf occur where golfing drama is combined with ecosystem regeneration and positive landscape change. The key to achieving the best possible environmental outcomes — maximising the environmental quality of the course — is in allowing the design to be guided and influenced by the specific site, integrating golf into the landscape rather than imposing the game upon it. The most memorable and inspiring golf is authentically presented within an ecologically viable and stunning landscape.

A golf architect focused on sustainability principles will connect great golf design to a thoughtful vision for a functioning environment. Win-win golf courses emerge when the designer's creativity is in tune with the site’s natural and cultural attributes.

Irrigation engineer

An irrigation engineer focused on sustainability will seek to minimize hard engineering solutions, such as pumping and purification systems, and instead favour natural solutions such as gravity-fed irrigation and wetlands for water purification. Indeed soil percolation, detention and natural treatment provide valuable ecological services at little cost and can be utilized as landscape features for the development. In arid regions, especially, golf development should minimise demand and maximise recycled self-sufficiency.

Agronomist

The inputs of a qualified and experienced agronomist is extremely important. Not just in ensuring a high-quality playing surface throughout the longest possible playing season, but also in ensuring long-term maintenance budgets are financially sustainable.

The agronomist focused on sustainability will place particular emphasis on determining the best grasses for the largest expanses of maintained turf — namely fairways and semi-roughs. Attention to detail on tees, greens and surrounds are also important, but in most cases overall resource inputs are lower due to a smaller total hectarage.

The agronomist should liaise closely with the golf architect on issues of grassing plans, and also with irrigation engineers on predictions for total irrigated area, water consumption and water type (e.g., greywater or fresh). The architect, irrigation engineer, and agronomist should work together to minimise the grassing plan, use the most suitable species and water most efficiently to minimise water resource use.

Construction manager

Potential environmental risks, such as erosion, siltation, chemical runoff, dust, soil damage and wildlife disturbance are particularly pertinent during the construction period. The construction manager needs to be fully bought into the sustainability vision and detail a complete Constructions Method Statement that describes how impacts throughout the construction period will be minimized.

Public relations and marketing specialist

With increasing interest from mainstream media, travel and lifestyle publications, and print and broadcast golf media, sustainability achievements can fuel low-cost, high-return publicity. A PR and marketing expert can ensure the sustainable development team’s work gets recognized. A sustainability emphasis can generate good press at all levels, including internationally. This role can also head off negative publicity by proactively communicating the development team’s environmental track record and engage the local community and planning authorities.

Course and club managers

It is increasingly common to bring the course superintendent or greenkeeper into the development during the design and construction phases. This can hep considerably with continuity of handover into grow in, and ensure that maintenance teams have an understanding about how soils and drainage were altered during development. More and more course managers have environmental knowledge and experience and this can be harnessed to ensure outcomes from development can be realistically sustained and even enhanced through ongoing course and facility operations.