As well as golf has weathered the COVID crisis, and as good as the pandemic has quite unexpectedly been for the overall health of the game, it is nonetheless facing serious challenges. Perhaps the most pressing of those is a shortage of workers that is adversely affecting every part of the sport.
“It is the number one problem in our industry because it has become so hard to hire anyone,” said Shelia Finney, the senior director of member programs for the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America.
That is certainly the case with the folks whom the organization represents, as they struggle to find experienced workers for their greenkeeping crews and rely more and more on high school kids, retirees and anyone else who can properly rake a bunker just to get their courses through the golf season in decent shape.
“Everywhere I go, whether I am playing or working on one of my courses, superintendents tell me they need four or five more people to get back to where they used to be,” said architect Steve Smyers, who is also a competitive amateur golfer. “These days, they all seem to be short-handed.”
The situation is just as bad for golf professionals, and stories abound of those who hold the top jobs at their places of employment being unable to fully staff their shops. That is partly because assistants are dropping out of the game at an alarming rate.
The good news is that many golf facilities appreciate what the labor situation has wrought and are doing what they can to improve the lots of their employees, as they strive to maintain high standards of service. But it will take patience, time and deft leadership to overcome.
Worn out by low pay, working ridiculously long hours and frustrated with having to wait years for promotions and raises, they also are exhausted by having to deal with an increasingly demanding and ill-mannered clientele.
Bottom line, many assistants have decided that the job these days is not worth the aggravation. So, they are moving on to what they perceive to be better positions in other industries. It’s their loss, to be sure, and golf’s as well, because the vast majority of those professionals are enormously passionate about the game and well-schooled on the particulars of the golf business.
Even longtime head golf professionals are walking away, largely in search of better work-life balance. “The pace is brutal,” said one Met Section PGA professional who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “Many of us work all day every day for months on end. And with more clubs buying simulators and building indoor golf facilities, we don’t even have off-seasons anymore.”
Problems crop up even when golf facilities turn to outside contractors for help in, say, renovating their golf courses, expanding their cart barns or modernizing their kitchens. That’s because the people trained to do that sort of work – and the companies that employ them – are busy like never before, thanks to COVID-related booms in construction, landscaping and home repair. So, a project that once took a couple of months to set up now requires a lead time of a couple of years.
Not surprisingly, labor shortages are wreaking as much financial havoc as they are messing with logistics. Simple laws of supply and demand mean having fewer people in the workforce, which will lead to steady rises in the wages those individuals expect to be paid. Nowhere has that become a bigger problem than in the leisure and hospitality realm, which includes golf. And that is forcing employers throughout the game to increase the pay they offer if they have any hope of filling job openings, in some cases by as much as 10-15 percent. Benefits also need to be enhanced if a club or resort wants to be competitive when it comes to hiring, and those inducements include housing allowances and more vacation time. Due to the huge increases in gasoline prices over the past year, some facilities have taken to buying each of their employees a full tank of gas every week for the vehicles they drive to and from the job. And if those sorts of moves mean dues or green fees go up, so be it.
Global Golf Post recognizes just how important and impactful the labor shortage is, which is why we have prepared this special report on the subject. In the articles that follow, we look specifically at how it affects golf professionals (see Sean Fairholm’s story) and course superintendents (in a piece authored by yours truly). Contributor Dave Gould examines how leading golf resorts are coping with the crisis, while Mark Mulvoy, a former Sports Illustrated managing editor and publisher, offers an opinion about how those of us who play the game can make things better for the people working at those places by appreciating the great jobs that they are doing under particularly difficult circumstances.
We hope you enjoy the reads.