Mission
The mission of the Vinland Natural Nine Golf Course is to provide a sustainable, environmentally sensitive recreational area which is nontoxic to the people, animals and plants that live and play there together.
Course vision
The inspiration for this course grows out of a commitment to environmental protection and activism. Instead of trying to prevent others from engaging in environmental destruction, Vinland Natural Nine Golf Course is a positive, environmentally restorative project.
Course discovery
One of the important ways to restore and maintain native prairie is occasional burning of the grasslands to control the invasion of the prairie by woodlands, an ancient struggle between ecosystems. Walking through the scorched prairie after a burn years ago revealed a fascinating topographic variety that had been concealed by the prairie grasses, sometimes growing to shoulder height. A course sprung to life, rolling across the prairie, over the wetlands, up the hill, along the ridge, down to the stream into the woods.
Since then it has grown from the terrain, sculpted from this landscape, the route from tee to green, from hole to hole. This has been done with no earth moving, reminiscent of the links style courses of Scotland, with their narrow fairways and deep rough. Golfers should expect this degree of difficulty; alternate tee locations provide players with variable forced carry options and larger targets.
Early golf courses
Golf originated over 300 years ago in Scotland. The early courses were routed through seaside or pastoral landscapes with little or no manipulation, or maybe only the grazing of sheep to trim the turf. The Vinland Natural Nine has been discovered and designed in this way, leading the player through a variety of landscapes. The goal is to be active in beautiful, natural surroundings, whether you are alone, or with friends or family (hitting a ball toward a hole).
Time in the wild
For many people, time spent in nature is important for serenity and personal growth. There are many pursuits that can enrich this experience, and everyone can find something to bring them closer to the nature that surrounds them. Some fly fish, others seek and identify birds, or wildflowers, or butterflies, many simply hike or bike through the natural environment. These activities can all be enjoyed here at the Vinland Natural Nine, and golf is yet another distraction to justify and enrich time spent out in nature.
Taking better care of the Earth by taking better care of this golf course No toxic chemicals are used; the pesticides, herbicides, fungicides and chemical fertilizers so generously applied to many courses (seven times the per acre use of conventional farming) are totally avoided. Fairway, rough and greens are not simply manicured monoculture grass. There is great biodiversity with several varieties of grasses (many native prairie grasses), sedges, wildflowers and mushrooms.
An effort has been made to disrupt a minimum of the wildlife habitat of the grassland. Of course, it is necessary to mow the light rough, fairway and greens, but these have been designed to preserve habitat by avoiding it. See for yourself the many varieties of plants, insects, reptiles, birds, and mammals with which we share this place.
Carbon free future
In the past, the course was mown with a gasoline powered mower. A transition is underway to an electric riding mower, an Electrak E-20, manufactured by General Electric in 1970. This mower has been restored and customized. It is recharged by plugging into a standard wall socket, but plans include a wind or solar generator to charge its batteries. Two kilowatt hours are needed to recharge after doing what one gallon of gasoline used to do, mow a medium sized fairway, approximately one hours work. That is about twenty cents worth of electricity, probably from a coal powered plant, doing the work of three dollars worth of gasoline, burned in a heavily polluting mower engine. The alternative charging source will eliminate the use of fossil fuels to maintain the course. Greens and tee boxes are mowed with a human powered reel mower.
History of this place
When the first European maps of this area were produced, in the 1850s, this land was entirely forested with old growth Oak-Hickory woodland, which now forms the Southern border of the course, extending to the neighboring Boyd, Rice and Breidenthal Reserves. We are on the North slope of a range of wooded hills then called the Baldwin Gaps, due to its impassability, now called the Baldwin Woods [www.ksr.ku.edu/about/html/baldwin.htm]. After Palmyra was founded in 1857, on the Santa Fe Trail, a road was cut through these woods to Lawrence, and that road passed through what is now our course. The trail bed can be easily seen passing through the deep rough along the 7th fairway and crossing the 3rd and 4th fairways.
Eventually the land was cleared and farmed with crops, mostly wheat and corn. The soil was not suited for this, and severe erosion cut the swales and ravines that give the course much of its topographic variety. In the 1960s, the USDA established a set aside program which took acreage out of crop production (ostensibly, to conserve topsoil, now widely believed intended prop up crop prices) and converted this land to grassland for hay production and cattle grazing. This program helped establish the brome and fescue grassland on which this course has been created. Additional developments include the pond, over which the 6th hole is played and the wetland and prairie restoration, around which the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th holes are lain.
Greens
An element of the VNN which is least consistent with modern courses is the greens, crude by current tournament standards, similar to the greens of 100 years ago, before hybrid zoysia, pesticides and million dollar irrigation and drainage systems. Although they are not billiard table smooth and flat, they are there to be played as they are, as golf is intended to be played.
Tee options
Each hole has three tee positions to accommodate golfers of different skill levels. The longest, marked by three stumps (hole length is measured 5 yards in front of the stumps), often has a forced carry, over water, wild lands, wetlands, or unmowed prairie, and is the proper tee position for experienced golfers. The middle tee position, marked by two stumps, will have shorter forced carry, achievable by intermediate golfers. The front tees have no carry requirement and provide a larger target for your shot. This position, indicated by a single stump, is provided for beginning golfers or for an easy golf round. The route through the course passes each tee position in order, so members of a group can play from different tee positions as appropriate or desired.
Golf hazards
Several patches in the fairway and rough remain unmown to protect them and to warn golfers to avoid them. These patches are highly irregular due to the elements of nature (geology, water, plants and animals) A free drop is allowed, even encouraged, out of fairway hazards. Playing out of a difficult lie, a golfer can take comfort that this situation was not created by a sadistic course architect or greens keeper, but by decades, centuries or millennia of natural forces.
Out of bounds
Players are discouraged from searching for balls in the unmown wild to reduce exposure to the hazards of nature:
>blood sucking insects (ticks, chiggers)
>skin irritating plants (poison ivy, stinging nettle)
>thorny plants (roses, bristly greenbriar, currents, locust, Osage orange)
>irregular soil conditions (sink holes, mole hills)
If for any reason you choose to venture into an unmown area, then you are choosing to accept responsibility for any consequences. Be aware of the risks.
If many balls are being struck into the wild, perhaps a closer tee should be used.
Find it, play it
After an unsuccessful search for a lost ball, you may play any ball you find that is not currently in play. A penalty stroke is optional, as agreed to by your companions or determined by your conscience.
Dress code
There is no dress code at the Vinland Natural Nine; however, please dress appropriately to protect yourself from the hazards of the wild. This includes long sleeves and pants, real shoes and socks (sandals and bare ankles do not provide protection from ground level hazards). Hats, sunscreen and insect repellent can provide additional protection.
Greens fertilization
You may notice that some pin locations are in areas of inferior turf quality. One likely cause of that turf condition is poor soil nutrition. By placing the flag in this position the spot is fertilized by the birds that use our poles as a perch (meadowlarks, redwing blackbirds). We apologize for any fertilizer on the flag or pole.
Divots
The density of the sod in a grassland inhibits the germination of other plant seeds. Disturbance of the prairie sod by animal activity helps provide opportunity for wild flower and other seeds to sprout: gophers and golfers working together to promote biodiversity.