Jeff Carlson is a leading authority on managing golf courses with a primary focus on environmental sustainability. He is a Certified Superintendent, who manages the organic protocol of the Vineyard Golf Club on Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. Carlson has managed the VGC’s unique protocol since the Club’s opening in 2002 and oversaw a total renovation of the course by architect Gil Hanse in 2014-15.

Managing the course under some of the most rigorous environmental standards in the country, if not the world, has required ingenuity, creativity, and more than a little experimentation. Carlson works in collaboration with experts at noted turfgrass management schools, most notably Dr. Frank Rossi of Cornell University. He also works with the USGA Green Section to research groundbreaking biological and cultural approaches.

Jeff Carlson has repeatedly been honored by the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America. For his continued innovation as Superintendent at the VGC, he was honored in 2008 with the “President’s Award for Environmental Stewardship” by the GCSAA. But perhaps his greatest recognition is that after 4 years of going before the Edgartown Conservation Commission on the island, they offered him a seat on the board.