THE DEEP-SHIFT TIMES ISSUE #2: The Grass Doesn’t Lie

Shift's Already Hit the Fan.

Check Your Hair, Insurance Policy and Bank Account.

Then Choose the Future You Want.

04.27.2026|  thedeepshiftproject.com

COMINGS

Meet Ray Kowalski, systems engineer and Ohio bridge-designer for 31 years. Newly retired. Now heading South to Sarasota with his wife ,Carol, his collection of classic movies and two dreams he’d nursed for a decade.

#1: Living in a solar home. For “Mr. Cost Effective,” the roof-top panels lowering his electricity bill and generating beer money from excess energy sold back to the grid.

#2: Dropping his golf handicap to 16. A dream he worked on most Tuesdays and Fridays when he, Phil, Donnie and Sid teed off — followed by pancakes and gripes about the pace of life and the rise in golf-course fees.

GOINGS

For Ray, all was hunky-dory…until the heat drove Phil back to Wisconsin, and the flooding drove Donnie back to his daughter’s ranch in Wyoming.

Sid felt badly. Ray was pissed. “I lost two buddies. To what? Bad weather?!”

As a younger man, he might have believed that. 

But now, as a Medicare-eligible, former 4-term state legislator, he could see the deeper truths:

  “I lost them because, once again, we’re being done in by our capacity to fool ourselves.”

Leaving Cleveland and heading south, he saw the fruits of that capacity.

In Ohio, the weather swung from cold drizzle to sudden sun and to cold drizzle.

By West Virginia, hammered by more storms and fewer mines. The hills look tired. So did the people.

Virginia? Farms that looked to Carol as if they’re holding their breath between drought and downpour. 

North Carolina: hurricanes galore and a shortage of roofers.

South Carolina? Air that tastes like potato chips, as the salt creeps further inland.

Georgia: bone‑dry one mile, storm‑soaked the next; egg-farms shutting down ,and egg prices shooting up.

And, finally, Florida,  “The Paradox State:” streets flooding on sunny days, insurance companies pulling out tourists choosing Atlanta, residents afraid they’ll be living with their parents or in tents…

…but yet endless sun, no state taxes and more golf courses than California or Texas.

In other words,Ray had d once again seen and felt the clash of human brilliance and human blindness.

It was a viewpoint he only shared with Carol.

Which is why, when he and Sid first met after their friends had gone, he just hugged his buddy, shrugged his shoulders and pretended at breakfast that the pit in his stomach was due to the pancakes.

THE NUMBERS RAY SUBSEQUENTLY LEARNED

30%	of Florida courses reported irrigation stress in 2023. In 2013: 11%.
600+	southeastern courses projected unviable by 2040 due to water and heat.
$3,400	average annual increase in Florida retirement costs since 2020.
7 of 10	Florida retirees say costs rose beyond what they planned for.

Ray’s upset persisted like long Covid. Until, on a sunny Tuesday, picking up his golf cart, he  ran into Marie, who was waving her arms and imploring the Club’s groundskeeper:

 “Come on! Look at this grass! It’s scrawny, again. This time, you've gotta take care of it."

“We’re getting to it, Ma’am.”

“Soon I hope. I love golf. And I need the best possible course to play my best possible game.”

Ray knelt down and felt the grass. “She’s right,." His voice was sad and soft. “And something’s very wrong. This grass is just a symptom.”

“Of what? The aquifer’s low?”

“Of a lot more."

Suddenly, Ray dredged up two memories.

The first was when - as a first-year graduate student - he got it in his blood and bones:

a bridge is just one part of a far more complicated transportation system…

roads, cars, trucks, towns and people, as well as wind, snow, water, rust and any of the other forces of Nature.

Over time, that simple, yet profound truth would guide his career, his life and his political views.

And the second was the day that America pulled out of Vietnam and Ray received his Ph.D in Engineering.

"We 're crazy" he told a friend at their graduation party. "We find and use ancient energy. We We split the atom. We invent farming practices that feed billions. And we make tools that are smarter than we are.

But how often do we really talk through what - longer term and downstream - could go very, very wrong?"

Case in point: human civilization.

To Ray, we should have known better.

Compared to the rest of Nature, we're the Energy and Water Monster. Plus, we make synthetic chemical and plastics that Nature’s never seen. Plus, we burn or bury most of our waste vs. Nature's re-use of everything, forever.

He also knew that these were harmless errors when there were a lot fewer of us, and life moved at a slug-like pace....

...but catastrophic errors when we scale up, speed up and too much of a good thing turns bad.

“Hey”, Sid asked with a wrinkled forehead:  ““More what?”

“Doesn’t matter. Let’s play. My handicap’s more important.”

That evening, poor Carol got the unabridged “grass” download.

“Ray, why on Earth are you taking that so personally?!”

“I don’t.” He looked out of their sixth-floor window. “I take it collectively.”

Down below, people drove, walked, talked, shopped, ate, pan-handled. Normal things these days. Didn’t matter. Tall or small. Rich or poor. Bankers or baristas.  Most still didn’t realize that - in regard to the worsening weather - they were both complicit and collateral damage.

As she left the room, she heard Ray’s cell phone ring. 

“Marie, what’s up?”…”Yes, I heard it.” …”Yes, I agree with you.” …  “I don’t know what I’d bring to the table.” … ”Sure, tee-time tomorrow at 1o. See you then.”

·  ·  ·

The next morning, he met Marie at the clubhouse. He was surprised at how fast she shook his hand and started to recruit him.

"I’ve been singing that ‘scrawny grass’ song for two years.”

On the 8th fairway: “ Clearly, you’re somebody who sees the system-level picture.”

By $ #14: “Surely, you’ve had to deal with closed-minded people offering simple-minded solutions.”

And back at the clubhouse: “…which is why I want you there. Priya's a friend. We'll be meeting with  Marty Kellner, the club owner. He’s a good guy in a tough situation.”

For the next 15 minutes, Marie ate fish tacos and filled Ray in:

"You gotta know the Club's history, because it set the stage for what the Club's up against today."

In a nutshell:

Marty’s dad, Ed, owned Palmetto Pines Golf Club for 18 years. Knew every member by name. Knew every sprinkler by number.

Then, when his  blood cancer worsened, Marty flew in from D.C.. He expected to stay two weeks - not two years.

In hospice…down to his last few days… Ed grabbed his only son’s wrist.

“I think it was the chemicals, Marty. All those years walking the fairways.”

“Dad, you don’t know that.”

“No. But I know what I breathed.”

Marty built office buildings. He dealt in contracts, zoning boards and the parade of innovations that cut utility bills in half and paid for themselves in three years. 

Golf courses were a different animal. Bugs and slugs. Torrential downpours and member-uproars. “Not my cup of tee,” he’d joke, dismissing his father’s latest offer to take over the family business. 

He wasn’t laughing when Ed left him both the course and a handwritten note:

“Bring it into the 21st century, son. I didn’t know enough. You do.”

“Dad! No! Damn you!”

Marty put the note into his wallet, where it turned his life upside down.

At first, he learned the business in order to fix it up and sell it. Six months later, he knew down to the dollar how much his water, energy, insurance and maintenance costs were up…and memberships were down.

Reluctantly, when no serious buyer showed up, he re-read the note in his wallet. “Alright, Dad. I’ll give you this.”

So, when he first met with Marie two months prior, he’d been polite, but noncommittal. In Marty’s language, that meant: not yet.

Now, evidently, he was ready.· 

Five people hoping to collaborate, but not sure how: Marty, Marie, Ray, Sid and Priya, a landscape architect who’d redesigned two courses in Tampa Bay.

Marty was stiff - like a man who hoped for the best, but wouldn't bet on it.

“I want your thoughts on what we should be doing," he set the tone. "But, please, let’s start with what we’re doing wrong.”

Marie looked over at Ray, who was ready to go.

“I’ve done some homework, Marty. Want the quick hit or the deep dive?”

"For now, the quick hit."

“Excellent!" And sounding like Harry Hopkins in “The Music Man,” he laid out why there was trouble in Golf City.”

--Watering during rainstorms. 

--Sprinklers on fixed timers while puddles form on the fairway — because nobody updated the schedule. 

--Calendar-based pesticide spraying every Tuesday - whether there’s a pest in sight or not. 

--Fertilizer washing straight into the pond, causing algae blooms.

--Empty clubhouse rooms with AC running and lights on.

--And a fleet of gas carts that leak oil and burn money.

“Yup, that’s our course.”

“That’s most courses,” Ray seized his chance to broaden the story.

" Ours isn’t the worst. 

Do you know that there’s a desert Club pumping millions of gallons of water a day onto fairways that get three inches of rain a year"...

...or that another course mows it’s rough grass weekly, burning fuel and raising labor costs for grass that nobody played from anyway”...

...or that a ton of clubs have spilled their chemicals and killed their wetlands?”

“All golf’s underbelly,” Marty spoke just above a whisper.

“Probably no better or worse than other sports - or other industries,” Marie chimed in. “Your Dad knew that. And hated that it was true.”

·  ·  ·

‘“Alright, Marie. What should I be doing?”

"For starters, listen carefully to what other Clubs have already done.

And to give you those examples, I've asked Priya to walk you through what looks smart these days in the world of golf.

The young woman closed her thick binder. As a millennial, she talked fast even in first gear.

“Marty, are you familiar with Bandon Dunes? On the dry Oregon coast. They ripped out irrigation on three holes and seeded drought-tolerant fescue. Maintenance costs dropped 40%. Yes, the grass looked brown some days, but members loved it because could still play on it."

“Members loved the brown grass?” His BS-detector was on full alert.

“What they loved is feeling like they’re Club cared about more than just revenue."

Ray leaned forward, as Priya kicked into third gear.

“Get this! TPC Sawgrass — the course that hosts THE PLAYERS Championship — switched to smart soil sensors in 2023. They cut water use 30% in year one. They’re still hosting the best players on the planet, and their grass plays well on tv.”

Marty’s sphincter tightened. “We’re not TPC Sawgrass.”

Priya's confidence rose: “No. But, why not do what they did?  Hell, all those sensors cost less than one emergency re-sodding.”

“That’s a really good point, Marty." Sid found a place he could contribute to the conversation. "Putting in better temperature sensors helped to keep my grocery store from going into the red."

Marty: “I know it’s a good point. That’s what’s annoying about it.”

Priya: “Well, prepare yourself: it gets worse.”

You know the WM Phoenix Open? What you may not know is that, in 2018, it hosted 200,000 fans with zero landfill. And, since then, they compost, recycle or donate everything.  

Then there’s The Zurich Classic - won the PGA TOUR Sustainability Award 3 times. Diverted 33 tons of waste in a single tournament. Initially, not because they had to or because it was the right thing to do. It was because waste-disposal fees were off the charts.“

And even equipment manufacturers got into the swing of things,” Priya added. 

“For instance?” 

“Well, for one, Callaway cut manufacturing emissions 25% since 2020. 

Many companies now sell biodegradable tees and GPS-tracked balls. 

And, best of all,  the US Golf Association has 47 water conservation projects specifically designed for courses like this one. Free research. Free frameworks. You apply, they help.”

“Free?” Marty sounded like he was testing a new concept.

“

Free,” Ray confirmed.  “But,  Marty, let me ask you. You’ve done green retrofits on commercial buildings You know the math. The upfront costs are real. And so are the long-term cost savings.”

Marty nodded. “And you designed bridges, right?”

“For 31 years.”

“You had to understand water systems, right?” 

“At great risk if I didn’t.”

And you think our irrigation system is structurally unsound, right?”

“I think it was designed for a climate that no longer exists.” 

The room went quiet the way rooms go quiet when an uncomfortable truth has been spoken out lou

“All right,” Marty said. “Keep showing me what’s right, and I’ll fulfill my father’s wish.”

In the next 30 minutes…boy, did they lay out the state of the industry today:

—More than 48M Americans play golf on or off course. And 136M Americans follow golf - nearly 59% of eligible voters. 

—US courses cover 4.9 million acres.

--Annually, they use more water than Los Angeles.

--They employ nearly 2M people…generate $84B in economic activity…and are knocking themselves out to avoid the business risks that are killing the ski industry.

Marty's BS-detector was signaling him again. "And I suppose they all joined the  Sierra Club."

"No, sir, they didn't." Priya slowed down ad locked eyes with him.

"What they all did do was recognize that everything was shifting: the weather, the regulations, the innovations, the cost/benefit equations and the behavior of the industry."

Ray bolstered that argument: "Priya's correct, Marty. That’s how the deep shift in golf got started, gained momentum and gave everyone a bandwagon to jump on…a parallel that’s more or less true today in virtually every sport and every industry in every part of the world."

So did Marie:

"Will it continue? Who knows? But if Palmetto Pines gradually integrates better sensors, native turf, electric fleets, smarter chemistry and more…you'll have lower and energy bills, fewer violations, fewer emergency re-soddings...and, hopefully, we'll have lower course fees!"

And Ray closed:

"You know. There's a lot of craziness in the world today. But I tell you: if we can navigate it...and if we can keep building on the momentum for the next ten years or so..I can imagine even more people playing and following golf, because the courses are better managed and they feel safer."

At the end of the hour, Marty closed the meeting: “I want to thank each of you for your feedback. I needed it. I heard it. I’ll get cracking on it. It’s never been clearer to me that the grass doesn’t lie.”

It just took a retired bridge engineer, a golf-course renovator, an overly-shy member, a woman who fought for what she loved, and a lawyer with a note in his wallet to launch the first few steps towards becoming a 21st-century model golf course.

Or, as Ray joked on his way out the door: “Happier grass makes me a happier golfer...and, hopefully, better able to get to 16."

·  ·  ·