Strawgrass sits on open country that stood here long before the routing. Our first job is not to ruin it — and, where we can, to give a little back.
The brief we gave Goff & Goff was a single sentence: build something that looks like it was always here. They moved little earth and took their lines from the lay of the land. Most of the property is not course at all — it is the prairie, the lake, the hedgerows, and the woodland edge, left to their own devices.
We are enrolled in the Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary Program for Golf, administered by Audubon International — which, despite the name, is independent of the National Audubon Society — and we are working toward certification. It is the same standard the courses you admire hold themselves to, built on six environmental commitments. A small synthetic-green course in open country meets most of them almost by accident.
The framework is Audubon International’s. The notes are ours.
A written plan for the whole property — the few acres in play, and the many that never will be. The plan starts from what to leave alone.
Nest boxes along the open ground, the Mulberry Alley hedgerow kept as cover, the reeds at the twelfth left standing, and no-mow margins around the water.
Trivially met, in truth. The putting surfaces are synthetic and accept no inputs at all; the native prairie gets none either. There is very little here to reduce.
The synthetic greens need no irrigation and the native grasses ask for none. We water the mown turf to keep it alive, not lush — and not much.
A planted, vegetated buffer rings the lake. With almost nothing applied up-slope, there is almost nothing to run off into it.
An annual spring bird walk open to members and guests, a checklist kept at the clubhouse, a resource advisory group of staff, members, and local naturalists who keep us honest, and the page you are reading now.
Twenty-two nest boxes line the open ground and the water’s edge for Eastern Bluebirds and Tree Swallows. We clean them in spring, log every brood, and keep the count honest. A good fledging year is its own scoreboard.
Between the boxes, we sow milkweed and native forbs for the pollinators and hold a no-spray policy across the property. The hedgerow that gives Mulberry Alley its name is, first, a wildlife corridor; it only happens to also frame three holes.
Four of the back nine’s holes are named for birds on this list. We did not name the holes and then go looking; the birds were here first, and we named the holes after our neighbours. A working selection from the fifty-some species recorded on the property, grouped by where you’ll find them.
Saw something not on the list? Tell the grounds office, or add it to the book at the clubhouse. The list below was last reconciled in spring 2026. Holes marked No. · Name carry that bird’s name — tap to visit the hole.
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