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“As a supplier to the industry, we
have worked to create products that
specifically improve native soils to
offer a better growing environment
for plants; we have products that can
reduce fertilizer leaching, products
that reduce erosion and sediment
control, products that offer vegetation
in lieu of using rock or concrete.
“Education on new technologies will
open the door to some very innovative
designs over the coming years,” adds
Langner. “Architects are working
hard to be viewed as environmental
stewards and that is a trend we see
overall with the golf industry—
educating the marketplace on the
myriad benefits that golf provides to
the environment.”
Technology is crucial to golf’s efforts to
improving environmental stewardship.
“The golf course industry is already
at the cutting-edge of sustainability
efforts with innovations in resource
management increasing at a rapid
pace,” says Lamont. “With water use
and re-use, storm water and drainage
management along with overall
environmental sensitivity becoming
an increasing concern, technology and
data must be utilized as never before in
order to make smart decisions.”
Fostering innovation
So how do golf’s leading organizations
foster innovation, shaping themselves
to capitalize on new technologies and
cope well with change?
Langner says: “We work closely with
golf course architects, builders, and
superintendents to identify issues
and problems that they encounter
during construction and renovation.
When we identify these issues we
work closely with our R&D and
technical departments to be able to
come up with potential solutions to
these problems.
“We focus a lot of our efforts on
lab testing, field trials, and test plots
at our in-house research facility to
make sure the product solutions
are viable, unique, and important to
the customers. We have many great
technologies currently, but each
has the potential to be modified or
improved in some way to provide
even greater benefit to meeting the
changing needs and demands of the
golf industry.”
Hackwell agrees: “Our innovation
comes primarily from customer
feedback and input. While our
team is out on the golf course with
irrigation managers, they learn
about situations that maintenance
personnel are trying to manage and
then feed that information back to
our product development experts.
Often a super-cool idea comes from
something as simple as a customer
saying ‘I wish I could do this…’”
Hackwell explains that Rain Bird’s
Temporary Station Adjust feature,
which allows irrigation managers to
adjust individual station run times
for specified periods, before returning
to the original setting, was one such
result of a user suggestion. “It’s a
simple and brilliant way to ensure
that the system is optimized without
making it difficult for the user. And
now every Rain Bird system user
installed during the past 20 years has
that feature in their software.”
Corporate culture
Leading golf businesses also
work hard at building a culture
of innovation. “We have advisory
groups within our corporate and field
structures where we have regular
meetings on innovation. We also
reward our associates for bringing
forward ideas we can test,” says
Garmany. “Our mantra is change is
a good and positive thing and we
should all work towards making our
sport more fun.”
“At EDSA we have built our
success on a foundation of proactive
collaboration and ideation on a flat
plane—fostering innovation begins
with fostering collaboration,” says
Lamont. “Our founder Ed. Stone Jr.
believed that learning was not top
down, that you could ‘learn anything,
from anyone.’ We have taken this
sentiment of continuous, horizontal
learning and collaboration and
applied it firm-wide.
“One of EDSA’s strengths comes
from our ability to draw innovation
from all aspects of life—be it art,
architecture or cultural tradition.
Because of our global reach, travels
and experience we are exposed to
Education on
new technologies
will
open the door to some very
innovative designs
over the coming years
Photo: Aidan Bradley