By Bob Cullen

Though television viewers will have to look closely to notice it when they watch the U.S. Open, Pebble Beach is striving to be not only a championship test of golf skills, but a leader in the nascent effort to reconcile the golf industry and environmentalist movement.

The course is lined and dotted with patches of underbrush and shaggy turf that would send the members of some elite clubs sputtering to the superintendent’s office, complaining of laziness and demanding that a crew with mowers and scythes be dispatched immediately to clean things up.

But those unkempt areas don’t generally come into play and are kept that way purposefully, explains Ted Horton, the soft-spoken Canadian who, as Pebble Beach Company’s vice-president for resource management, oversees the maintenance of Pebble Beach and its nearby sister courses, Spyglass Hill, Del Monte and Spanish Bay. The tall grass and undergrowth provide habitat for deer, fox and some of the 72 species of birds counted at the last “birdathon.”

And the shaggy vegetation bordering the course’s cliffs and barrancas is not there because the staff was afraid to run a mower too close to the edge of a precipice. It’s a buffer area designed to protect the aquatic ecosystem from pesticides and fertilizers that might run off the fairways and greens during heavy storms. The thick, unmown grass absorbs that stuff before it can get where it’s not supposed to be.

Some aspects of Pebble Beach’s environmental stewardship are invisible to the golfers who play there. The fairways and greens are irrigated largely with recycled waste water from the nearby towns. The Pebble Beach Company paid for a retrofitting of the sewage treatment plant and a pipeline to send the water to the eight golf courses of the Monterey Peninsula. The company has also invested in a computer system to gauge the condition of the soil, the weather and other factors. It lays down water only where and when the course needs it. Another computerized system tells Horton and his staff which types of fertilizers and pesticides to use on which sections of the course, and how often.

Pebble Beach Company has recycling programs to dispose of everything from grass clippings to empty beverage cans. It was recently cited as one of the 10 best recycling companies in California by the state government’s Integrated Waste Management Board.

Still, the course is not as environmentally benign as it might be, Horton says. Pebble Beach uses several times more pesticides and fertilizers than Spanish Bay. That’s because the company will tolerate a few weeds and brown patches at Spanish Bay. They aren’t tolerated at Pebble Beach. Glassy greens and impeccable fairways require more fertilizer, more water and more pesticides, especially when they have to sustain 50,000 rounds of golf per year. Pebble also hasn’t got as much acreage devoted to wildlife habitat as Spanish Bay, which is one of the reasons Spanish Bay has been certified by the sanctuary program of Audubon International and Pebble Beach has yet to be.

Horton believes Pebble Beach will get that certification. One of the reasons is that good environmental stewardship makes good business sense for its owners. Recycling grass clippings saves the company a little money. Using waste water ensures that it won’t have to risk letting the fairways burn up when the next extended drought brings restrictions on water use to central California. More important, the company has a plan to develop 316 housing lots and a new golf course on acreage it owns a bit inland from Pebble Beach, in the Del Monte Forest. That plan requires approval from both Monterey County and the California Coastal Commission, where environmentalists have demonstrated their influence to delay or even block projects they disapprove of. Winning the environmentalists’ support, or at least minimizing their opposition, could have a positive impact on the company’s bottom line.

But that’s not the motivation for the people who actually maintain the buffer zones and recycle the clippings, Horton says. They do it because they enjoy protecting the environment. “No one wants to go home from work and hear neighbors be critical of the place they’re employed,” he says. “This program makes them feel good about what they do.”