"Why golf’s toughest job is growing harder"

While the golf industry is enjoying a renaissance, Bradley Klein asks “at what cost to superintendents?”

Besides the strains of the pandemic and other issues with the labor market, he points out several factors of concern for all in maintenance and at golf courses. Including this:

Retention of labor at a golf course has always been an issue. It is perennially difficult to find folks who are willing and able to show up at 5:30 a.m. on weekends. Most crews are now on flexed schedules allowing alternate weekends or weekend days off, for example. But the telltale signs of inexperience are there. I recall, for example, one example of a superintendent who has to scout the greens each morning and repair damaged cups from sloppy cup cutting.

Courses have all had to increase their wage rates to retain labor in the face of stringent challenges from ancillary job sectors like landscape, building construction and home repair. And at the skilled level, the shortage is evident in the difficulty superintendents have had in recruiting qualified technicians and assistants. The ranks of the country’s university level golf agronomy programs are depleted. Golf is a great game but, increasingly, it is not being perceived as a great career.