For nearly three decades, Mark Hoban has been improving golf courses around Atlanta by turning back the clock on turf maintenance, but his work throughout the years has gone largely unnoticed. Until now.Hoban, superintendent at Rivermont Country Club, recently was named winner of the Georgia Golf Environmental Foundation Environmental Leader of the Year Award. His work incorporating native tall grasses, native sand and organic management practices that have helped put Rivermont on a path toward sustainability were the subject of a recent three-part TurfNet TV video series produced by Randy Wilson. Hoban, who has been incorporating such practices since the 1980s when he worked at The Standard Club, hinted that the videos might have helped finally bring more widespread attention to his work.
"I think the word got out on a lot of what I'm doing based on the videos. Very few people, even in Georgia, knew what I have been doing," he said. "Because of the TurfNet video, I think a lot of people got more exposure to it."
Since 2011, the award by the Georgia Golf Environment Foundation, which is an arm of the Georgia GCSA, has recognized golf course superintendents and/or their courses for overall environmentally friendly golf course management in the areas of resource conservation, water quality management, integrated pest management, wildlife/habitat management, and education/outreach. In addition, these categories are judged on sustainability, community outreach, originality and the use and/or implementation of technology. Previous winners include The Landings Club (2013), Reynolds Plantation (2012) and Buck Workman, CGCS (2011).
The association also presents an award in an open or non-golf category.
The open or non-golf category of the annual awards went to State Rep. Tom McCall, R-Elberton, Georgia, for his work on a statewide water management plan and drought regulations.
A past Georgia GCSA president and chapter superintendent of the year in 2002, Hoban was nominated by a handful of his peers, according to the Georgia Golf Environment Foundation, for incorporating organic practices and utilizing native grasses and sands to give Rivermont a rustic appearance that elicits memories of the game's past.
"Mark has long been an advocate for less pesticides (are) better," wrote Richard Staughton, CGCS at Towne Lake Hills Golf Club in Woodstock, Georgia, in his nomination letter. "His yearly agronomic plans have been aimed at maintaining his turf with more natural inputs and applying the minimum number of pesticide applications possible, and actually accomplishing just that."
Among the many initiatives undertaken by Hoban at Rivermont are the incorporation of native tall fescues that require minimal maintenance and inputs and help conserve water. He also maintains scruffy-edged bunkers filled with brown river sand that help provide a classic-era appeal. The course was the first Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary Golf Course in the Southeast located outside Florida. The work is the result of a 10-year-old restoration of the property that reflects his views on the direction in which he believes the turf maintenance business should be pointed.
"We put in a design that was based on native vegetation that was quite different from anything else in Atlanta," Hoban said. "It became a real wow for the members. They loved the brown sand, they loved the look."
Hoban also has reduced fertilizer and fungicide use by embracing organic management practices. He maintains a worm bed on the property and brews compost tea that helps produce beneficial mychorrhizae in the soil, which is the subject of University of Georgia research being conducted on the course.
Hoban hosts youth groups to educate children about what goes on behind the scenes at a golf course, and the kids, he says, love getting their hands dirty in the worm bed. He also established hives for native pollinators, a program which he plans to expand this year. His work goes a long way to defy public perception about the golf industry.
"The parents talk about it and ask if they can come see what we're doing," Hoban said.
"Come out here, look at what we're doing and tell us we are a nuclear waste site. You can't deny what you're seeing out here."
His work with earthworms and compost tea has captured the attention of his colleagues, many of whom are eager to see the long-term and repeated results of the work."His latest innovative worm farm project is actually serving two purposes, using the biodegradable trash from the clubhouse to produce a compost tea for spraying his turf; the biodegradable trash acts as a food source for the worms which in turn produce a healthy soil/vermicompost full of natural nutrients. This compost is then brewed to separate the microbes from the compost and produce a sprayable tea. Mark and his mad scientist imagination with homegrown microbes may be onto something that could help golf course superintendents and the environment in Georgia with healthier and more natural-like turf."
Hoban, who has been at Rivermont for 10 years, began his career at The Standard Club in 1971. There he eventually succeeded the legendary Palmer Maples Jr., CGCS, in 1986, and began working with native grasses when the club physically moved from its original location in Brookhaven, Georgia to its current home in Johns Creek. His work there drew mixed reviews from golfers. Some loved it while others, obsessed with the idea of lost golf balls, hated it, describing their thoughts on fescue with words not fit for print.
"We kept telling members they had a diamond in the rough, but back then, people were just so obsessed with Augusta National. Older members finally started to get it. They weren't obsessed with every bunker lie. They noticed the deer and the birds, and they were looking up and seeing different colors, contrasts and seasons. Before that, all we had was brown in the winter and green in the summer."
Before Hoban worked at Rivermont, the course never was particularly well known for its conditions or playability. Hoban's tenure there began with a restoration that allowed him to move in with his philosophy lock, stock and barrel.
He plans to continue full-speed ahead with his natural management philosophy, including increasing the number of bee boxes on the course this year.
"We put in six this year. Next year, I'm going to go nuts with them," he said.
He credits leadership and members at Rivermont for giving him the freedom to explore this passion, and hopes he doesn't push things too far.
"I have a boss who has vision, and we have a great partnership because he allows me the latitude to do this," Hoban said.
"Sometimes, I wonder if I've gone too far. I keep telling my wife if I ever come home with a tattoo, a ponytail and an earring, you know I've gone off the edge."
