While the term tree-management is code for removing as many trees as possible without incurring the wrath of golfers, nearby residents and environmental groups, it takes on an entirely different meaning at Lochinvar Golf Club.
Built in 1980 and designed by Jack Nicklaus, Lochinvar Golf Club in Houston, embraces the thousands of trees spread across the property's 207 acres.In recent years, several factors, including lightning (always a concern on the Gulf Coast), drought and the southern pine bark beetle, are claiming dozens of trees each year. Throw in damage from Hurricane Ike back in 2008, and Lochinvar has lost more than 1,000 trees in the past eight years.
"We are flat with loblolly pines, many of which are quite majestic," said Lochinvar superintendent Kevin Cooper. "We are losing 20 to 30 trees a year to lightning, pine bark beetle and drought."
A member of the weevil family, the southern pine bark beetle is native pest that, like other bark-burrowing critters, disrupts a tree's water and nutrient uptake ability by digging through the vascular system. During the past 50 years, the southern pine bark beetle (just one of more than 200 bark beetle species) is responsible for more than $1 billion in damage, according to the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.
Cooper's tree-management plan includes continuing to cull dead, dying or ailing trees affected by natural phenomena, as well as promoting new tree growth.
Cooper, who has been at Lochinvar for eight years, has spent much of the past six overseeing the planting thousands of saplings to restore the area to how it looked before and gradually reintroduce trees in strategic locations on the golf course.
"Since 2010 we have planted more than 3,000 trees," Cooper said. "Many are strategic throughout the golf course, but over the next 70 to 80 years we'll help reforest the place."
Before being named superintendent at Lochinvar, Cooper prepped for Paul B. Latshaw, CGCS, at Muirfield Village in Dublin, Ohio. Before beginning his tree-management plan, he invited Latshaw's father to Houston for a consulting visit.
"He took one look at the place and told me 'I'm no tree-hugger, but you can't lose these trees.' " Cooper said. "They are a big part of the property."
Cooper is fortunate that crewmember Delfino Flores, though not an arborist, is well versed in tree care and management. His primary job at Lochinvar is feeding, watering and otherwise managing trees of strategic importance. He also works with a local arborist on what to plant where, and how to care for the trees to ensure they are around for generations to come.
Tree management, even something as simple as pruning and trimming, can be a source of angst for golfers who tend to embrace things like trees. Not so at Lochinvar, where members are tree savvy.
"At a lot of places, trimming trees makes people nervous," he said. "Here, trimming trees is not frowned upon. They know we're trying to take care of everything on the property, including the trees."