Stories, ideas and solutions to create a more fun, inclusive and regenerative world in and around golf
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Gateway Golf: Designing Short Game Golf Courses
Award-winning golf architect Paul Jansen points to a statistic that should reshape the future of golf course design: roughly 75% of golf shots are played within 125 yards of the hole. If most of the game happens inside a wedge’s reach, why do so many golf facilities continue to prioritize long holes, large footprints, and resource-intensive maintenance models? Short-format golf (including par-3 courses, pitch-and-putt courses, putting courses, short-game areas, and night-lit golf experiences) offers a more accessible, sustainable, and profitable model for the future of the golf industry.
After decades of designing around the 25% of the game played beyond wedge range, the next generation of successful golf facilities will be built around the 75%: the scoring shots, feel shots, and beginner-friendly experiences that grow participation, improve revenue per acre, reduce environmental impact, and welcome more people into golf.
Pondering Pond Quality & Holistic Turf Health
In this Driving the Green interview, NanoOxygen Systems founder Ron Pote explains how water quality and dissolved oxygen influence sustainable golf course management. Drawing from projects like East Lake Golf Club, the conversation explores how improving irrigation water can enhance turf health, soil biology, and golf course sustainability while reducing chemical inputs and water use. By mimicking the oxygen-rich qualities of rainwater, new technologies may help superintendents manage irrigation ponds, reclaimed water, and turf systems more holistically (supporting both environmental performance and golf course profitability).
Engineering, Intuition, and the Future of Turf
What does playing great golf share in common with stewardship of healthy and sustainable turf? Carl (Cornell Turfgrass Team) and Andre (Driving the Green) discuss the very practical balance between systematic measurement and tactical feel, or between theory and follow-through when it comes to turf management.
Pro Sport as Catalyst for Change: Previewing the World Cup (2026) & Olympic Games (2028)
In celebration of this year’s Green Sports Day, we’re looking towards the global sporting events coming to the U.S. in the next couple of years and how they’re influencing the sustainability of sports venues and operations here. Next summer, eleven U.S. cities across the country will host games for the FIFA World Cup. In 2028, Los Angeles will host the 2028 Summer Olympic Games (LA28).
Into the Woods: A Future-Fit Nature Immersion with Author and Regenerative Leadership Coach, Giles Hutchins
No one is here to "save" the planet, and if anything, it's here to save us - away from the mechanical and technocratic tendencies of a modern materialism that misperceives itself as separate from the living world. What toward? More flow, healthier alignment, deeper fulfillment, and greater possibilities, rooted within a wisdom that is over 3.8 billion years old.
Sustainability Spotlight: California Community Golf Summit
The California Community Golf Summit brought over 130 municipal golf stakeholders together to discuss a range of issues including rising operational costs, diminishing natural resources, and conflicts over land use, just to name a few. Director of Sustainability at National Links Trust (NLT) and Co-Founder of Driving the Green, Andrew Szunyog, discusses his participation in key panels:
Existential Threats to the Game
Are You a Welcoming Golf Course?
Maximizing Efficiency in Golf Course Agronomy
Community Programming Success Stories
Enhancing Community Golf Through Design
Emerging Markets
What is “The Environment”? How can golf “save” it?
To save “the environment” is to live in harmony with the whole of life. This is not about promoting domination, isolation, or even passivism -- but alignment -- and golf is the ultimate game of alignment. It starts and ends with being fully present.
Celebrating MLK and Civil Leadership Through Golf
Each team member of Driving the Green shares what MLK Day means to them, along with their experiences of how golf brings that value to life, carrying forward the legacy and dream of MLK.
Golf v. Public: A Case of Degenerative Golf Development at Jonathan Dickinson State Park
Jack Nicklaus said that 90% of a golf shot happens before you ever swing the club. Recent news saw the equivalent of a failed setup for public golf development in South Florida…
Olympic Spotlight: Le Golf National - How This Premier French Golf Club Leads Eco-Responsibility (Ahead of Regulations)
Le Golf National, located in the southwestern suburbs of Paris, hosted the 2018 Ryder Cup and also hosts the French Open annually on its Albatros Champions Course. Le Golf National is not only a renowned golf club in France, but it also walks the walks when it comes to sustainability. This comes as no surprise given how dedicated the International Olympic Committee (IOC) was to making the 2024 Paris Olympics the most sustainable yet.