Growing grass is tough enough for golf course superintendents. Properly maintaining turf, too. But then imagine having to do those and any number of additional tasks while golfers are playing more rounds than ever before and a national labor shortage makes it exceedingly difficult to fill crews – and to do so with competent people.
Now you have an idea about what the past couple of years have been like for the men and women who strive to ensure that the fairways we play are properly mowed and the greens on which we putt are running true.
The problems besetting superintendents these days are many and almost entirely COVID-related. They began in the winter of 2020, when the pandemic forced golf facilities throughout the land to shut down. As a result, many places started laying off workers who in better times washed dishes and waited tables in the clubhouses, picked the ranges, cleaned carts, raked the bunkers and rolled the greens on the courses.
In June of that year, the PGA Tour started up again. And it was around that time that golf facilities began reopening for recreational play as well, the rather sensible decision having been made that the royal and ancient game was also a safe one for players. After all, it was an outside activity that lent itself quite easily to social distancing. The move was widely applauded and it gave those who had been forced to work or study from home a chance to get out and about again. Soon after, America’s golf courses started to fill with players.
"Whatever the reasons, we went from having 20 to 22 people on our crew in the years prior to the pandemic to as few as 12 in 2020."
JOHN KELLY
In many ways, that was a good thing. Problem was, the golf facilities needed to staff back up, and many of the workers who had been let go were in no hurry to return to their former jobs. Some were happy with the money they were making from their unemployment compensation and enjoying the time they suddenly were able to spend with their families. Others also secured gigs in non-golf industries that paid more and provided much better work-life balance to their lives.
As a result, maintenance crews across the country were woefully and quite suddenly undermanned.
Another issue arose when the U.S. government suspended the issuance of temporary H-2B and J-1 visas for a spell. Those had been broadly used in golf to attract workers, and their disappearance further shrank the labor pool.
Around the same time, concerns over the situation with assistant superintendents started to become acute. A number of them began leaving the game because they had not been able to advance to head jobs as quickly as they once did. With so little movement among the top positions plus more courses closing than opening each year, career opportunities can be limited. And it became harder for those individuals to rationalize a long wait for one of those jobs, especially with young families.
“A lot of those people have student loans,” said Tim Moraghan, principal of Aspire Golf Consulting and the former head of the USGA Green Section. “They are living in high-rent parts of the golf world. They are paying lots of money for food and gas. So, some moved on to other jobs in other industries when they tired of waiting.”
According to the Golf Course Superintendents of America Association, a 2021 survey of responding members found that superintendents averaged $97,354 per year, and assistants were paid $48,841.
The increase in rounds played also put an extra burden on already burdened green crews and made it hard to maintain optimum turf health amid increases in foot and cart traffic as well as the number of ball marks and divots golfers create during rounds. Because of supply-chain issues and rises in fuel prices, shortages of fertilizer suddenly started to occur. A sense of pride in their work made it tough for supers and their staffs to stomach less than top-of-the-line conditioning. It also frustrated their golfers, who wondered why the courses were not looking as good as they had in the past.
“Even in the best of times, staffing is a challenge,” said John Kelly, head course superintendent at the Kittansett Club in Marion, Massachusetts. “But COVID made it even harder to get people. Maybe they were on unemployment and did not need the job. Maybe they found better-paying positions in construction or landscaping. Whatever the reasons, we went from having 20 to 22 people on our crew in the years prior to the pandemic to as few as 12 in 2020.
“We made it back to 17 or 18 the following year,” Kelly said, “but we could not hire any more because every other industry was looking for people, as well. I am not sure exactly how many we will have this year. But we will figure out a way to get the job done.”
Because that’s what course superintendents do.
“We have been getting very creative with our course maintenance team in terms of sequencing and how and where we deploy them,” said Mike Carbiener, general manager of the Sand Valley resort in central Wisconsin.
Kelly says that he started doing much the same thing at Kittansett.
“We also started hiring more college kids,” he said. “They’re mostly gone by the end of August, but they help us out a lot. So do the retired guys I have hired the past couple of years. I have five or six of them now, and they also work hard. But we have to be sure we did not work them too hard.”
Dumb luck has helped the situation, as well.
“Having to remove rakes from the bunkers in the early stages of the pandemic made it easier and quicker to take care of the golf courses with fewer people,” Carbiener said.
As for Kelly, he remembers a drought in 2020 being something of a godsend because it caused the grass to stop growing for a while. “We did not need to mow nearly as much as we normally did,” he said.
Of course, much of what superintendents and the golf facilities employing them have done during the past year or two has been purposeful, such as making housing more affordable for workers so jobs at those places are more enticing. Clubs also are starting to offer higher wages, too, and more reasonable hours.
“We have had to adjust our expectations of how much people will work as well as how much we need to pay them,” said Scott Paris, the chief operating officer and director of golf at the Plainfield Country Club in New Jersey. “We also had to adjust our budgets and increase dues so we could cover those added costs. It’s about finding a better work-life balance for our people, about paying competitive wages and about having an enjoyable culture that makes people want to be here and be a part of this club.
“It’s also about doing what we can to be successful in recruiting and retaining staff,” he said. “And that includes getting out in front of these labor issues. Our agronomy team operated 20 percent light last year, but this year we are fully staffed because we recruited early and often.”
Communication is key, too.
“As superintendents, we are letting our members know better than ever before what we are doing, and why,” Kelly said. “That way, we can better manage their expectations as we explain to them all that we are trying to do in what have been very challenging times.”
Growing grass seems so simple by comparison.