TPC at Jasna Polana Receives

River-Friendly Golf Course Certification

The Stony Brook Millstone Watershed Association (the Association) is pleased to present its first River-Friendly Golf Course Certification award to The Tournament Players Club at Jasna Polana.  The Watershed Association launched its River-Friendly Certification programs to help local businesses, golf courses, and residents adopt environmentally sound land management practices that enhance water quality, conserve water, and promote native flora and fauna.  By adopting new practices, individually tailored for each participant, they can reduce the amount of pollution flowing off their property in storm water, increase the amount of rainfall that stays on site to recharge groundwater supplies, and attract beneficial wildlife. 

TPC at Jasna Polana has worked with the Watershed Association to develop and implement course management practices that reduce the impact of their Princeton golf course on local water resources. Some goals and accomplishments of the course include: reduced chemical usage through continued implementation of their integrated pest management plan, increased vegetative buffers along stream banks, updated irrigation system to increase water conservation, and highlighted their efforts through posting educational signs on the course.

The River-Friendly programs are funded by the William Penn Foundation. Additional funding provided by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Targeted Watershed Grants Program allows the Association to continue efforts within the Millstone watershed and expand the scope by partnering with New Jersey Water Supply Authority and South Branch Watershed Association to implement the program throughout the Raritan region.  

Jasna Polana was built in the early 1970s as the country home of J. Seward Johnson and his wife, Barbara.  No effort or expense was spared in the four and a half years it took to build this exquisite estate.  The decision to convert this magnificent estate into a world-class championship golf and social club was made by Barbara Piasecka Johnson after Jansa Polana was no longer being used as the family’s primary residence.  To bring her idea to life, Mrs. Johnson chose as her partners two of the most prestigious names in the sport – golfing legend Gary Player and the PGA TOUR’s Tournament Players Club Network.  Since the opening of the Club in 1998, Jasna Polana has remained committed to upholding the highest environmental standards.  The golf course and its staff have been recognized with numerous awards for this commitment, including the prestigious designation as a Certified Audubon cooperative Sanctuary.
 
The Stony Brook-Millstone Watershed Association protects water resources in the 265-square miles of central New Jersey drained by the Stony Brook and the Millstone River, encompassing most of Mercer County and portions of Hunterdon, Somerset, Monmouth and Middlesex counties.  The Watershed Association partners with municipalities and landowners to restore and maintain water quality, natural lands and waterways. It runs the state's largest water quality monitoring program along 60 miles of streams and restores stream banks.  The Association’s headquarters is located on an 830-acre reserve in Hopewell Township that includes a nature center, a four-acre pond used for education and research, 14 miles of hiking trails, a butterfly house (to open in June), and Honey Brook Organic Farm, an independent community supported agriculture farm.  The reserve is the largest privately held and permanently deed-restricted land in central New Jersey.  Visitors are welcome from dawn to dusk all year long. For more information, call 609-737-3735 or visit online at www.thewatershed.org.

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