President's Corner
When I took over as President I shared with you my advocacy of a “sustainable golf course” as well as outlined my vision of how our golf course should be.
As you are may be aware the game of golf is being unkindly branded by many as elitist. Moreover, golf courses are viewed as wasteful consumers of ground water and heavy users of chemicals and fertilizers that are not only harmful to human beings but also erode wildlife value and environmental benefits.
I am of the honest opinion that golf is not necessarily for those who have and that we don’t have to use excessive water and chemicals to optimize playing quality. Our initial scores in this regard have been very encouraging. Our water consumption is only 23.3% of the water requirements of our golf course. Our water conservation is a whopping 72.7%! This means that we are hardly a factor in the decline of ground water levels in the area.
Average nitrogen application is way below prescribed limits. It is only 0.039 kg/has/month compared to the required 1.6kl/has/month average. The use of other chemicals is negligible to adversely affect our natural environment and the health of people on and around the golf course.
To soften the impact of the “elitist impression” of the game, we linked with the neighboring communities and identified and profiled youths for golf development. Currently, we have 36 youth scholars, who are mostly children of our caddies. We made them stakeholders of our golf course by creating work opportunities for them. Capacity building programs are also being implemented to uplift their socio-economic well being as well as that of our employees and caddies. We are also opening our golf course on selected days for educational tours and to the curious ones who never had any chance to see a golf course at close range much less set a foot on it. We have an employee’s day (every Monday), whereby anyone, including our cook, ground maintenance, electricians, caddies, etc. are allowed to play a round of golf, free of charge. By making them as partners, a sense of ownership is instilled in them.
To accentuate our resolve on this, we adopted Harmie Constantino, a 6-year old girl who exhibited extra ordinary potential in the game but may not be in a position where her golfing gifts can be sustained to greater heights of achievement. We are now well on the road to being a sustainable golf course.
Our focus now are in three areas:
• optimization of playing quality of our golf course
• environmental stewardship and
• financial stewardship
Our efforts on the first two are now beginning to yield positive data. We need to do more on the third aspect. We must ensure that our finances will sustain us to where we want to go. But as we all know financial viability is always a careful balancing act of cost reduction and revenue generation.
We have put in place a control system that will make a sound, responsible and transparent financial system. We have drastically reduced operational cost save those that are necessary to keep our golf course at par with the best in the country. But there is a limit to what we can do here, otherwise customer satisfaction will be adversely affected which I do not want to happen.
We are therefore constrained to adopt revenue-generating measures that are fair and will help keep our Club in good financial health. One of them and I wish to take this opportunity to announce it now is our policy on consumables which will take effect on May 1, 2009.Effective that date all non-members shall pay a consumable fee of three hundred pesos (P300.00), which they can use to buy food and/or beverage at the restaurant and tee-houses. It will be cumulative for one week only. A separate implementing policy shall be issued accordingly.
Also, we acknowledge that hole-in-one is an uncommon feat. It deserves fitting recognition and rewards. I have decided that those who make a hole-in-one shall be awarded with a club trophy, have his name inscribed in a permanent hole-in-one board that will be displayed at the Clubhouse lobby and given a P7,000.00 worth of food and beverage voucher. However, a hole-in-one insurance fee of P50.00 per round per player shall be collected to help the Club defray the expenses. I hope that this package will make your every golf play with us more enjoyable and exciting.
I thank you for your understanding and support. Our journey to sustainability has not been easy and I know it will be bumpy at times. But I have no doubt that our advocacy will see us through any difficulties and challenges that come our way. We should all take pride in the fact that we are a golf club who takes care of our natural resources and the environment and gives due regard to the socio-economic well being of our immediate community and our own employees and caddies while making members and guests satisfaction paramount in all our efforts.
I would like to appeal to your sense of belongingness, respect for Mother Nature and concern by asking you to patronize your Club. Enjoy playing the game of golf, commune with nature and be part of a worthy and beautiful undertaking of transforming TAT into a sustainable golf course.
My best regards!
Sincerely,
Edna Selloriquez Paña
AB, LLB (San Sebastian Recoletos)
LLM, Environmental Law (University of London 2004)
PhD (Law) Candidate, National University of Singapore
(Thesis on Golf and the Environment)
