Environmental Expertise
No golf course architects working today, anywhere in the world, bring to the table more environmental education and implementation experience than Fry/ Straka Global Golf Course Design. Long before it became fashionable, the firm routinely introduced native plantings and utilized advanced varieties of turfgrass that require reduced water, chemical and fossil fuel consumption. Fry/Straka doesn’t just support Audubon International and the Scotland-based GEO (Golf Environment Organization) Foundation for Sustainable Golf — Jason Straka proudly serves on the advisory committees of both organizations.
While Dana Fry and Jason Straka are protégés of the pioneer in this field, Dr. Michael Hurdzan, their commitment to a balanced golf ecosystem predates their design careers. Straka holds a Masters degree in Agronomy and Environmental Golf Course Design Studies. He has taught that latter discipline at the university level. A past judge for the Golf Digest/ GCSAA Environmental Leaders in Golf Awards, Straka has served as an expert environmental witness for the U.S. Department of Justice and Environmental Protection Agency. Dana Fry began his career in course construction, as a shaper, and so he brings to each design project a singular working knowledge of earthmoving, erosion control, and structural environmental awareness.
Over the course of 30 years, in myriad environments around the world, Fry/Straka remain uniquely committed to (and capable of) reducing maintenance costs, enhancing sustainability, and creating overall course properties recognized as natural community assets by golfers and non-golfers alike. Below are just a few such examples.
The Ambiente Course (ambiente literally means “environment” in Spanish) at Camelback Golf Club in Scottsdale, Arizona, a Certified Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary where an astonishing 43 million gallons of irrigation water are saved annually following Fry/Straka’s comprehensive renovation, which restored native landscape and wildlife habitat while mitigating complex flooding issues.
FarmLinks at Pursell Farms in Sylacauga, Alabama, where thousands of course superintendents, managers and owners from around the globe have visited to study this one-of-a-kind agronomic and environmental research/demonstration facility — an original design that just happens to be the #1 public course in the state, according to Golfweek.
The Georgian Bay Club, draped over the Niagara Escarpment, a UNESCO World Biosphere Reserve in Collingwood, Ontario, Canada, where F/S carefully planned/routed this original design to protect three salmon-bearing streams that feed Lake Huron. F/S also worked with the Wild Turkey Federation on native plantings here, to benefit and grow a newly reintroduced gobbler population.
At the municipally-owned Los Robles Greens in Thousand Oaks, California, where F/S implemented a turf-reduction and naturalization program as part of a comprehensive course refurbishment — GolfInc magazine’s “Renovation of the Year” for 2017. The make-over also resulted in major reductions in fertilizer, pesticides and fossil-fuels usage, to say nothing of an annual 20-million-gallon reduction in water use.
Fry/Straka is a recognized leader in incorporating and advancing golf course technology to control costs, reduce maintenance, and enhance environmental assets without compromising quality, playability, or aesthetics.
By specifying 13 different species of native grasses, ground covers and shrubs, plus dozens of wetland plant varieties at Union League National in southern New Jersey. These painstaking efforts created a rugged Pine Valley environment that will also control erosion. Sustainably.
By working with the USGA at Westwood Plateau in British Columbia, where Fry/Straka advanced the use of roadside flat tile in greens construction, a technique now proven to limit rock trenching, cost, construction time and disturbance while improving subsurface drainage.
By pioneering the use of subsurface erosion-control fabrics specifically for bunker construction, vacuum-assisted drainage, and soil-moisture sensoring.
By establishing the industry standard for “no-till” design and construction, which protects native soils while preserving/enhancing existing plant and animal habitats. Where? At Erin Hills, host of the 2017 U.S. Open and 2025 Women’s Open.
We invite you to peruse the entirety of FryStraka.com for a fuller sense of the firm’s overriding environmental commitments. In reading our partner biographies, the Philosophy & Process sections, and the Course Gallery — where lofty rankings and tournament engagements sit side by side with environmental awards — you will better appreciate how and why sustainability & environmental stewardship inform most everything we do at Fry/Straka. Also visit the News page often to get updates on our latest designs and accolades, including links to podcasts where we have been the featured guests to discuss the very topic of sustainable golf course design.