The Goose Grass Challenge

Description

Goose Grass is one of the more obnoxious weeds to control on the golf course. The challenge with spraying Goose Grass with a chemical is the length of time it takes to kill the weed properly and the impact the chemical has on the environment. On the contrary, hand pulling is immediately effective and environmentally friendly.

The majority of the Goose Grass we needed to take care of was in the rough where we could take advantage of the weed’s size and hand pull it. To motivate staff to remove a large number of weeds in a short period of time, we created the Goose Grass Challenge. The Challenge was set up like a fishing derby where the staff had a certain length of time to pull weeds and report back to the Maintenance Shop for a weed weigh-in.

Implementation

During the Goose Grass Challenge, the staff was given two hours to pull as many weeds as they could, then return to the Maintenance Shop for a weed weigh-in. A large table was set up and every weed pulled by each staff member was counted. The totals were tracked over a four-day event period with the daily winner receiving $100 and the overall four-day champion receiving $500.

The Challenge was extremely successful. We were able to eliminate 4,400 weeds on the first day of the Challenge without using any chemicals. The results were immediately visible on the course with an instant improvement in overall appearance. This environmentally friendly challenge motivated staff members and they had fun challenging their coworkers and winning some money.