As a respite from many of today’s stresses, golf courses have seen dramatic increases in rounds. At private and semiprivate courses there is often a waiting list for new memberships and the tee sheets on public courses are often booked well in advance. Regardless of where I go in the South, I hear the same story. Rounds are up, revenue is up, but availability of labor is a major problem. While there are many unique benefits and opportunities in the golf course maintenance industry, working on a golf course is not for everyone. You’re working in the elements and golf course maintenance staff are often up, out of bed, mowing, setting up markers or cutting holes before the sun is even up. Working on weekends is often a necessity. In today’s world, everyone is hiring so there is a lot of competition for any available labor.
I was on a golf course recently where the superintendent told me he lost over 1,600 hours of labor in two months in the summer simply because he could not fill available positions. This meant that he and the other staff members were working overtime. In his own case, this often meant 14-hour days – sometimes seven days a week. This is dedication and passion for what you do. It showed because the quality of the greens, fairways, tees, roughs and most areas of the golf course were exemplary. Yet despite the hard work and excellent results, there were angry members wanting to fire the superintendent because the sand in some bunker faces was drier than in the base. This was in Florida, where 1-3 inches of rain can fall in less than a few hours and rain can occur almost every afternoon.
Yes, I’ve seen more golfers than I can remember in some time. Courses that usually have little to no play in the summer in Florida are often seeing more than 100 rounds a day. Summer is when most of these courses have to aerate, vertical mow, fraise mow, scalp fairways and complete summer projects. Sometimes this work has to occur around golf rounds as closure times are being reduced. Throw in labor shortages and grumpy golfers and heading up a maintenance crew can be an even more stressful job than normal.
It is important for golfers to understand that there is a limit to what a golf course can do with the staff they have available. Many course maintenance tasks require training and practice, it’s not simply a matter of hiring someone off the street if you even could hire someone. Retaining staff after they’ve gotten experience can be equally challenging, especially with countless other industries competing for the same labor pool.
Prioritizing tasks and assigning a labor cost to each one can help superintendents understand and explain the tradeoffs among the many tasks their staff could be doing at a given time. Communicating these tradeoffs and challenges to golfers is more important than ever because the choices made can have a clear impact on course presentation and conditioning. When golfers express frustration about course conditions, it’s often because they aren’t aware of the limitations or costs involved with their expectations. Hopefully, better understanding will lead to more realistic expectations. Thank your golf course superintendent – they do incredible work in a job that is stressful, laborious and not for everyone.
The USGA GPS Service can help you overcome labor challenges at your course. This service allows courses to rent small GPS loggers that golfers put in their pockets or clip to their clothing during their rounds. Facility managers can then view where golfers traveled on a customizable heat map of their course. Seeing the traffic data on a map of the course makes it easy to identify bunkers and others areas that can receive fewer inputs without having an impact on play.
Southeast Region Agronomists:
Chris Hartwiger, director, USGA Course Consulting Service – chartwiger@usga.org
Steve Kammerer, Ph.D., senior consulting agronomist – skammerer@usga.org
Jordan Booth, agronomist – jbooth@usga.org