The Concept of Managing

I had the pleasure of talking with a long time friend and superintendent on the phone this past week. Not only is he a great grass grower, he really understands the industry as a whole. We get into some really good conversations about golf and the state of it. One thing we really got into recently was the idea of managing, and how mismanagement at golf clubs (private and public) seems to be more than the norm.

Our discussion first focused on his club, and how recently the employees were paying double the insurance premiums month after month, eventually notifying the GM of the issue. The GM’s response was, “What do you want me to do about it?” The same employees continued to show the GM their paystubs and he ignored the issue, until they went to the controller and the controller realized the error. Now it is important to say that the controller should have caught the error, but isn’t it the GM’s job to oversee the operation? This same club, before this previous GM, hired a GM who used to stock shelves at WalMart. No lie….and with no background of any kind in club management. He knew someone on the board. Simply put, he knew someone on the board.

I spoke of my experiences with him on the various GM’s I’ve had over the years, and at least half of the people who oversaw me didn’t have the necessary tools and background to be a GM. I’m still trying to figure out one of them who happened to be an assistant restaurant manager. To this day I am not sure how a restaurant manager has the capabilities to oversee an entire golf club, yet more and more of them get GM jobs. He lasted a little over two years at my club before being terminated.

Another club, whose superintendent was just fired this past year, hired a former restaurant manager as its GM. Here’s what happened there. His club decided to do an entire renovation of their golf course. New greens, bunkers, some re-routing, and a new driving range were on agenda and approved. During the budget process this GM lays out his budget, and in it, says they should have a full year of golfers and cart fees. Never mind that the golf course would be closed almost 8 months for the reconstruction and that no one would be able to play. The GM budgeted over 20000 rounds and revenue with it. The superintendent told me that he questioned the GM’s budget, saying there was no way they could do that kind of play with the course closed, but the GM told him they would and he forwarded the budget to the board. Board approval……..and a $600000 year end loss for the club. During the grow in the super ran out of water and he struggled to get his course grown in. Over his vacation he was told that he had been terminated, but the GM survived and is still there to this day. There is some doubt that the club will make through this year and will have to close in ‘09.

Golf seems to be an industry that thrives on people who aren’t qualified to be GM’s running clubs. I know the CMAA is a great organization and its membership is strong. I’m not knocking them at all. But it seems to me, the more I talk to people in this industry, the more I see that the wrong people are in charge. And ultimately the superintendents, golf pros, and other supervisors pay for their ineptness. With the economy in the state it is right now, their glaring weaknesses will show themselves in lost revenue, lost membership, and lost jobs for the people that work there. This is a time for strong leadership in golf, and at times, it seems to be lacking. For every good GM, there are, in my opinion, two horrible ones. And clubs continue to hire these people and get what they deserve. Sometimes they do it on the cheap, getting someone for next to nothing. But you get what you pay for. I hope for the sake of golf in the future that clubs look deeply at the people they put in charge of their facilities. Their livelihood and survival is at stake.