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ZerveHack 2026

THE ASH
BORER EFFECT

Does an invasive beetle improve your golf game?

01
Ash tree marked with white X for removal

Ash trees marked for removal on my local courses

02
Emerald ash borer beetle

The Emerald Ash Borer — arrived in Detroit, 2002

03
EAB larval galleries under bark

S-shaped larval galleries cut off nutrient flow, killing the tree

04
Aerial view of forest with dead ash trees among green canopy

Hundreds of millions of ash trees killed across 37 states

05
Golf course with ash trees removed — stumps visible along fairway

As trees were removed, I started scoring better

Fewer trees mean wider fairways.
Does an ecological disaster
actually make golfers better?

06

Built End-to-End in Zerve

Python + R running side by side on a single canvas

Zerve canvas DAG showing full pipeline
07

The Beetle Helps Your Game

-0.76 strokes per tournament after EAB arrival

p = 0.002 • 95% CI [−1.24, −0.28] • Player, course, and year fixed effects • Clustered SEs

Tournaments are often decided by a single stroke.

08

Ash Extinction Timeline

2039 half of America's 8 billion ash trees gone
Ash extinction timeline — 50% gone by 2039

Calibrated from 40,959 multi-year USDA Forest Inventory records across 16 states

09

Interactive Explorer

Deployed via Zerve App Builder

Pick a year and watch the beetle march across the country

An absurd question.

A real answer.

A real catastrophe.

Built end-to-end in Zerve • R + Python
View the Project