Tee it up for Earth Day: 10 ways golf courses are becoming more environmentally friendly

While golf courses are often a target for environmentalists, most superintendents and golf course operators go to great lengths not only to protect the environment, but to give back.

Gone are the days, for the most part, where golf courses were merely water hogs, irrigating with millions of gallons of drinking water with the excess carrying toxic chemicals into the groundwater system.

These days, most golf courses employ precise irrigation and pesticide use, conserving whenever possible and doing everything they can to protect the environment.

So in honor of Earth Day, we've revealed 10 examples of how golf courses are doing their part to not only protect the environment, but contribute to it.

Carmel Valley Ranch has a SmartHive, which is a bee hive sitting on a scale with sensors that transmit data on the health of the hive, including weight, temperature, and weather conditions. Having a Smart Hive on the course is a unique opportunity to contribute valuable information which will help in understanding the real-world effects of pesticides on bee health, and the course offers guests interactive tours of the initiative.

Winner of Golf Digest's Green Star award, Northport Creek Golf Course in Northport, Mich. is a nine holer that uses solar power from computerized panels placed on the course for the clubhouse, golf carts and irrigation pumps. When it opened in 2014, Northport Creek became the nation's first course to be totally solar powered.

Matt Ceplo, superintendent at Rockland Country Club in Sparkill, N.Y., has helped grow the dwindling population of beautiful Monarch butterflies by convincing members to keep plenty of milkweed plants on the property. The butterflies like to lay their eggs on the milkweed plant, and the Sparkhill area is on the migration path from Mexico to southern Canada.

Since 2012, Josh Heptig has led a zero-waste initiative as the director of golf course operations for the County of San Luis Obispo, Calif. Dairy Creek Golf Course in San Luis Obispo uses organic composting that comes from two sources -- golf course's green waste and the food-and-beverage waste. Dairy Creek's goal is to eliminate waste that leaves the golf course.

Like many courses in America, North Ranch Country Club in Westlake Village, Calif. has removed 35 acres of highly managed turf. The result is big savings on water and pesticide use for the course, which is located about an north of Los Angeles.

Vineyard Golf Club on Martha's Vineyard, Mass., uses no synthetic pesticides, fertilizers or herbicides. This beautifully manicured golf course shows that it's possible to maintain top conditions without the use of chemicals. The Vineyard is one of just a handful of golf courses in North America that are totally organic.

Since 2011, Bear Trace Golf Course at Harrison Bay State Park in Tennessee has been a home for bald eagles. Superintendent Paul Carter has installed an "Eagle Cam" so everyone can have a look (harrisonbayeaglecam.org). Bear Trace has twice been recognized for the Governor's Environmental Stewardship Award.

Since 2010, Westchester Country Club in Rye, N.Y. has benefited from a huge geothermal project that annually saves the club more than $200,000 on heating and cooling.

Brooks Golf Course in Okoboji, Iowa first reduced water use by 10 percent, then implemented a wetland system that collects the backwash water from a nearby water tower, to save even more. The plan is in cooperation with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources.

Kohanaiki on the Big Island of Hawaii has built a series of brackish water wells. Those wells supply a reverse-osmosis plant for water filtration, and a 12-million-gallon lake that will supply enough water to irrigate the golf course and all of the community's landscaping at a cost far less than the expense of purchasing water elsewhere.