Before the first golfer tees off each morning at Interlachen Country Club in Winter Park, superintendent Bryce Gibson is already walking the fairways, listening to birdsong, scouting dry spots and preparing 110 acres of maintained turf for the day ahead.
“It’s definitely peaceful,” Gibson said. “We get up early before the day breaks. We get mowing, but you get that little reprieve where you’re walking from place to place while they’re mowing, and you hear nature all around you.”
That early morning ritual is part of a much larger story unfolding across Florida’s nearly 1,200 golf courses – one where science, sustainability and innovation are changing how courses manage water, fertilizers and the environment around them.
Florida has become the national model for environmentally responsible golf course management. The state is the only one in the country with a certified golf course best management practices program – a distinction that J. Brian Unruh, professor and associate director of the University of Florida’s West Florida Research and Education Center, helped build.
“We’re the only state in the nation with a golf course best management practice certification program,” Unruh said.
The program, which originated with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, was written into state statute in 2022 and signed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis. It covers everything from environmental monitoring and irrigation to fertilization and pesticide management…