By: Nia Fredrich | nfredrich@massgolf.org
It’s likely that you stick as many as 18 tees in the ground during one round of golf. Maybe less if you prefer ground irons on a par-3 tee box, but just imagine the number of tees that end up on or in the ground in your lifetime rounds. For a Mass Golf community of 120,000 individual memberships, that’s a lot of tees on its own.
But do you ever wonder what may happen to the half of the tee that stays in the ground if the tee is broken on impact? Or why have courses and groundskeepers been slowly adding discard boxes and garbage cans closer to the tee box to have you help clean up the tees on the course?
It’s no doubt that the involvement of the Mass Golf community can make a difference on the courses in the Bay State, however, the idea of discarded tees has caught the attention of a non-golfer who is looking to help create change.
It’s no doubt that the involvement of the Mass Golf community can make a difference on the courses in the Bay State, however, the idea of discarded tees has caught the attention of a non-golfer who is looking to help create change.
Laura Biagiotti, a senior at Watertown High School, has taken an interest in the way golf tees are broken and discarded on golf courses. Biagiotti is interested in an education and a career in engineering. As part of the Engineering Development and Design course, students are tasked with solving a real-world problem in a year-long project. Biagiotti’s desire is to gather information from those involved in the game to develop an idea for a solution.
Biagiotti does not have the biggest background in golf, as a varsity and club basketball player, but her interest stems from a round she played with her dad and brother where she took notice to the discarded tees and couldn’t help but think about the need for a sustainable solution. Passionate in her work, Biagiotti’s ‘why’ for this project is her love for engineering and a desire for a future career following in her father’s footsteps.
“I’ve wanted to grow up to be like him since I was a little girl. I’ve learned to be more creative and started to love solving problems. In middle school I took a bridge class and that started the growth of my love for engineering.”
Biagiotti has taken an interest in the game of golf as she has added a few more rounds under her belt. With an interest in expanding her knowledge of the game and her year-long Engineering Development and Design course, Laura is looking to create a different design for the golf tee that will allow it to be sustainable for all involved parties on the course.
“It made me wonder if I could create a solution and better the game of golf. But before even thinking of a solution, there needs to be a clear and concise problem, which the survey will help me with” said Biagiotti.
Our Mass Golf community is composed of the perfect audience to help provide the feedback needed for Laura to succeed in her mission and dive deep into her engineering project. The knowledge and golf experience in our community can help determine the problem Biagiotti is looking to solve. She has created a survey tailored for different perspectives on the issue of broken tees on the course that can be answered among our community of golfers, groundskeepers, and course managers/owners. To further see the interest Laura has taken in the game and become a seed for inspiration and change in the industry, please click the link for the survey and follow the prompts to provide feedback from your golf perspective.
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