FEATURE: Back to Golf’s Future

BACK TO GOLF’S

FUTURE

BY PAT JONES

Let’s jump into Marty McFly’s DeLorean for a minute and take a spin back to 2019. There (then?) we would find 2019 Pat Jones giving the same state of the industry speech he’d been giving for five years. In a nutshell: n Courses were slowly dying off because play had been sluggish for years but this was actually healthy in the long run to normalize supply and demand n Supers’ biggest problem was labor and the possibility of mandatory $15 minimum wage n Baby boomer supers were starting to retire n Budgets were largely flat n We were at the tail-end of a decade-long remodeling boom that made Gil Hanse rich n Robot mowers and autonomous operations were the future n On the bright side, a few more women and girls were coming to the game and golf as exercise was growing in popularity. Then the thing happened and lots of stuff changed. Let’s review. First, everyone needs to get one fact straight: the pandemic didn’t save golf…superintendents saved golf. Supers are, first and foremost, problem-solvers and the craziness of March 2020 demanded that big problems be solved fast and cheap. You folks, with a handful of staff, showed up and kept the big green things alive and viable as businesses. Golf should be forever grateful to its turfheads. But don’t hold your breath. And, what’s more, the years of grassroots work, participation in state and national lobbying and relationship-building by supers and associations paid off in spades. In many regions, chapters took the lead in responding on behalf of the other

associations. More than a decade of proactivity by GCSAA and chapters like Michigan GCSA paid off big-time. I know it wasn’t perfect, but golf returned much more quickly than I had ever dreamed it could. By the end of the year, rounds were up 25-35% nationally and in basically the rest of the world. The press about golf was great and, rather than hurting some of the good trends we’d been nurturing, the pandemic accelerated play by women, kids and, of course, avid golfers who were no longer tethered to an office Monday through Friday. The only economic downsides pandemic-wise were the loss of group and event revenue in 2020 at facilities that do a lot of outside stuff and, of course, wear-and-tear costs caused by more play and single-rider carts (where that was a thing). It was a huge win for an industry that needed it. So, golf’s problems are all solved! Happy days are here again and we all can sail off into a profitable sunset, right? As Lee Corso says, not so fast my friends! We learned in 2021 that retaining the gains of the Great Covid Golf Bubble (I refuse to use the word “boom”) won’t be easy. For one thing, weather still dictates the success or failure of the golf business and Mother Nature was not nearly as kind about golf-friendly weather in 2021 vs. 2022. Rounds lagged behind 2020 but were still way ahead of 2019 in most places. Better cash flow slowed course closings to about half of recent years but, honestly, we need to get supply and demand right some day. There are still too many courses out there just selling 18 holes for $18 without really creating much value in the market. Oversupply remains a big problem.

Then there’s the issue of exhaustion. I’ve lost count of the number of supers I’ve talked with who describe the pandemic golf era as one long grueling 20-month season. It was a short winter and then a sloggy mess through the actual ’21 golf season. And, of course, most maintenance teams remained at what felt like half-strength. Virtually every superintendent asked said they were at 4060% of necessary staffing, particularly after they lost students in August. The result has been way more hours and time spent out on the course for most superintendents and, of course, their assistants. Everyone was wiped out. And until we right-size wages for staff and salary/ work life balance issue for assistants, this problem will continue.

If there’s one thing about the pandemic of which I am certain it’s that it turbocharged a bunch of trends that were already emerging. Families played a lot more. Women took up the game with a passion. And the growing WFH (work from home) trend blew up. The good news is that is here to stay. Corporate America is thrilled to be getting out of the commercial real estate business. WFH is the new normal for a big chunk of our best customers. Woohoo!

Pandemic magnification also continued to widen the gap between the “haves” and “have nots” ion the spectrum of facilities. Clubs with good resources and leadership made the most of it by greenlighting improvements, adding apprenticeship programs, offering new services and – as always – emphasizing hospitality. At the other end of the business, it’s still a struggle. Too little of that new cash flow is trickling down to maintenance. And that struggle will get even tougher as wages, fuel and cost of goods all rise in 2022 and play – weather permitting – stays at levels above 2019. So, where does that leave 2019 Pat’s key points? Let’s update them for 2022. n Course closures have temporarily slowed but will ramp back up as more folks move out of cities and countryside real estate development starts to gobble up failed facilities.

n Supers (and their bosses) need to rethink their old staffing and wage assumptions and figure out how to field a smaller, smarter, better-paid and highly motivated crew. n Baby boomer superintendents are retiring – or being retired – rapidly. Demand for up-andcoming turf pros haven’t been this good in 30 years and salaries will reflect that. n Many budgets will jump 15% but much of that will go to hourly wages, gas and fertilizer. n Gil Hanse is still getting rich but our friend Andy Green is right up there with him. Renovations are massive among the “haves.” n Robot mowers are still coming. I swear. Finally – and most importantly – 2022 Pat will finish his speeches with a reminder that golf has this one shining moment to respond and grow and not just blow another opportunity to expand the reach of this great game. We cannot go back to treating women, kids and anyone who’s not an old white guy like second-class customers. Stop letting the geezers dominate your agenda. Focus on fun and exercise and families and, most importantly, hospitality. The difference between the winners and the losers in the Great Golf Covid Bubble will be making customers feel welcome and appreciated. It’s a simple as that. In that way, the post-pandemic future really isn’t all that different than the past. The question isn’t so much what changed during all this craziness, but whether we can use this moment to evolve and get back on track to a better future for golf.