Zeon Zoysia the Best of Gwinnett and Maybe the World

Nestled only a half hour outside of Downtown Atlanta, Georgia, Gwinnett County has been one of the fastest growing counties in the United States since the 1970’s.  Since 2000, Gwinnett has claimed more than a quarter of the region’s total growth and is responsible for nearly 18 percent of metro Atlanta’s population.

According to U.S. census data, the Gwinnett population has increased by over 40 percent in just the past decade.  The counties commitment to expansion of both economic and civic infrastructures, has contributed to its rapid growth.  Gwinnett is also considered by many to be the most culturally and ethnically diverse county in the Southeastern United States.

Gwinnett County is prized for its access to bustling city life, booming communities, gorgeously maintained natural spaces and an education system that is recognized both nationally and regionally for its stellar schools. As the largest school system in Georgia, 90 percent of Gwinnett’s public school graduates go on to some form of higher education.

The County’s economic opportunities span far and wide for area workers.  Professions in retail, construction, manufacturing, professional/technical services, administrative support/management, education, government, financial, legal and health care industries constitute a majority of the county’s jobs.  Still growth in this metropolitan county continues to boom and there is no end in sight.

With the diversity of such a dynamic and fluid community, opportunities for achievement and magnificent success stories abound.  But how do you identify individual innovators and companies that have risen to the top in a particular field and excel at what they do?  Once again, Gwinnett Magazine has done just that, and they’ve come up with the Best of Gwinnett for 2014.  This award winning publication has once again identified the best of the very best in this community.  This month Gwinnett Magazine has published their coveted best of special issue.  This year it was surprising to see just how great the response was and how many different businesses, business people and organizations submitted votes.  Gwinnett Magazine tallied over 75,000 votes to develop the list of those craftsmen, products and services that have been determined to be not only the leaders in Gwinnett, but in some cases in the entire state of Georgia.  One such “Best of Gwinnett” is Zeon Zoysia and those farms in our great state that produce this coveted turfgrass cultivar.

Georgia farmers are eager to point out that they produce more of this award-winning turfgrass than anywhere else in the world.  The Zeon marketing headline which lauds, “Extraordinary Has a Name” has now been validated.  No longer is this simply a sentiment within agronomic and golf industry circles, but now one shared by a very diverse end-user demographic.  The word is out and across Gwinnett County its official, Zeon is The Best of Gwinnett.

Yet, Zeon’s appeal and accolades seem to have reached far beyond the boarders of our metropolitan county and those of the Peach state.  Yes, 2014 was truly a banner year for this homegrown living carpet, the world over.

The National Golf Course Owners Association named The Clubs at Cordillera Ranch its 2014 Golf Course of the Year. The course developers selected Zeon Zoysiagrass for its playing surfaces to create not only a beautiful, highly playable golf course but also to keep in mind the high incidence of drought in the region.  With Zeon gracing the fairways and roughs of this Texas hill country course, Zeon’s low-input requirements have exceeded all expectations. The Clubs at Cordillera Ranch is simply a visually stunning golf course and the NGCOA agreed by determining that it demonstrated excellence in golf course quality above all other courses from across the country.

PGA Tour professional golfer Tiger Woods took little time in selecting Zeon Zoysia as the playing surface for his much anticipated Bluejack National Golf Course, currently under construction near Houston, Texas.  With Bluejack National being Tiger’s first course design in the United States, there was no question that all those involved had determined to set the bar very high.  The entire Bluejack experience, had to exceed that of anything else in the region.  Everything down to the tiniest detail had to be top-shelf.  Thus, the fairway design and the rug had to be the best, it had to be Zeon.

But where else could the world stage get any larger than the world-wide Olympic games?  Yes, Zeon is even going to be representing Gwinnett County and the United States in the 2016 Olympics.  As golf returns to the games in Rio de Janeiro, after a 100 year absence, the links will be carpeted with Zeon Zoysia.  For most of 2014, the Gil Hanse designed Olympic Golf Course has been covering everything but the golf course greens with Zeon, the preferred playing surface for the most talked about golf course in the entire world.  It should come as no surprise that already, golf courses around the world are lining up to make the conversion to Zeon.

So a resounding and much deserved congratulations to those production farms and the many individuals that have worked so tirelessly to develop and market such a brilliant agricultural technology in Gwinnett County and around the world.  Being recognized as the best at what you do, while presenting a signature product that exudes “Extraordinary” is nothing short of amazing.  Equally as impressive is the fact that over the past seven years Zeon has continued to capture increased market share consistently, while at the same time garnering the highest price point of any sod variety sold in our county and across the state.

Zeon may be considered “Georgia’s Turfgrass of Choice”, but now it is not simply Gwinnett’s turfgrass of choice, it is considered The Best of Gwinnett.