Focused on Labor

Superintendents across the country shed light on the biggest problem in golf maintenance — a lack of labor.

When he’s not at work, Robert Guerra is comfortable in a cowboy hat and cowboy boots. The superintendent at Reunion Resort in Orlando can do a Clint Eastwood stare when he wants to.

But that stare has been shelved for a while now. In fact, his menacing look has been replaced with a look of desperation. That’s what happens when a crew of 15 — for 54 holes — suddenly shrinks to nine.

“I’m desperate for help,” says Guerra. “With competition all around me, it’s hard to find guys. It feels like no one is coming through the door to help.”

In Las Vegas, Rhodes Ranch Superintendent Oscar Sanchez finds himself in a similar situation. One of his best operators just quit yesterday, taking a better paying job at a competitor golf course in the area.

“We were paying him $12 an hour and that wasn’t enough,” he sighs. “He went to make $15 an hour at another guy’s place. I had another guy who was making $14 an hour, now he’s making $20 an hour in construction. It’s hard to compete with construction.”

Across the country, superintendents share the same concern: a lack of people who are willing to be out on a golf course, working early hours, at a pay rate the course can afford.

“I talk to superintendents all around. Labor is bad for us because of our pay scale,” Sanchez says. “My key guys — assistant, spray tech, mechanic, irrigators… they’re really good. A couple of my operators are first class. The rest of my guys are just… so-so. There really isn’t good help out there.”

Sanchez remembers a time when he could choose from 100 laborers who wanted to work for him. Now, he says, he must be flexible with his crew because if he tries to be tough, “they’ll split.”

“I had this same problem in 2000, when construction was booming. Then construction went down, and there were people who wanted to work for $5 an hour,” he laughs. “Right now, it’s difficult. And everyone is facing the same problem because everyone is chasing the same crew members. We’re all trying to get the same guys.”

Help from H2-B

“The way we do business is dynamically changing,” says Anthony Williams, CGCS. “There’s so many people competing for the same labor pool.”

In April, a group of golf maintenance professionals visited Washington D.C. as part of the 10th Annual National Golf Day. According to the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America, it was the biggest National Golf Day yet.

Many of the attendees wore a black-and-white button on their suit coats that carried a simple message: Save H2-B.

Robert Helland, director of Congressional and Federal affairs for GCSAA, says H2-B is an important agenda item for GCSAA because of the challenging labor pool superintendents currently are facing.

“A lot of these courses with our member superintendents tell us over and over again — without those extra workers from overseas enrolled in (H2-B), they wouldn’t be open,” Helland says. “We respect that. We know that a lot of the times for the seasonal jobs that are out there, the workers are just not there domestically and our superintendents are forced to find employees from overseas to help fill out their work force.”

One of those courses using the H2-B program with success is the Broadmoor in Colorado Springs, Colo. The resort has about 2,000 summer employees, with 300 of them being H2-B workers. Zach Bauer, superintendent at the Broadmoor West Course, says the H2-B program has helped round out his crew, along with college students and retirees. His H2-B workers, he says, are among the hardest working guys on the crew.

“What’s really great is to pair the college kids with one of the H2-B workers on a job. The college kids really learn what it means to work hard and do the job right when they see the H2-B guy do it,” he says. “I just can’t say enough about our group of H2-B workers. They keep coming back each year from Jamaica to work for us and they do a great job. One of the guys has been coming here as long as I have been at this course, and he is like a brother to me. We really have a great camaraderie among our staff, and that helps us put the best golf course our there we can for our visitors.”

Tony Gustaitis, CGCS at Whitemarsh Valley, Lafayette Hill, Pa., has lost seven crew members because of rising H2-B expenses.

Not everyone is enjoying the same success as the Broadmoor, though. Tony Gustaitis, CGCS at Whitemarsh Valley CC, Lafayette Hill, Pa., had to leave the program behind last year due to increasing costs in the program. It was especially hard to do, Gustaitis says, because some of the H2-B workers had become “like family” to him.

“The government tightened restrictions — this is pre-Trump — with the Department of Labor and Homeland Security that the hourly rate you had to pay the H2-B guys jumped 50 percent,” Gustaitis says. “You also have to pay anyone else that does a similar job the same rate. So, you’re talking 10 people that are all going to get huge raises if I pursued (H2-B.)”

That means Gustaitis has lost seven workers from his regular summertime crew. Five clubs in his area compete for crew members. While he’s been mostly successful (lucky, he says) in keeping a full staff, it hasn’t been easy.

“I’m just putting ads in the newspapers and going through the normal online search firms for summer and temporary labor, and that isn’t panning out all that great,” he says. “It’s very difficult to find someone coming off the street that wants to work on a golf course and wants to get up at 4:30 in the morning to get to work at 6.”

Dynamic changes

Superintendents just can’t find the people they need for the seasonal jobs,” says GCSAA’s Robert Helland.

Estoban Rodriguez has been working at TPC Four Seasons Resort Las Colinas in Irving, Texas, for 20 years. A Mexican immigrant, Rodriguez was led to golf maintenance by his uncle, who told him the work was enjoyable.

Rodriguez instantly took to the work, and enjoys seeing the golf course progress through the seasons. It took two years before he was hired full time, but once it happened, he hasn’t looked back. In fact, his supervisors are sometimes shocked to see that once he clocks out from the maintenance crew, he hangs up his maintenance gear and puts on a shirt and tie to work in the clubhouse, serving guests at banquets.

“Any extra work I can get, I’ll take,” Rodriguez says. “Riding a mower doesn’t tire me out so much that I’ll turn down overtime pay.”

Rodriguez’s supervisor (on the golf maintenance crew, at least) is Anthony Williams, CGCS, director of golf course maintenance and landscaping operations. It doesn’t surprise him to see Rodriguez working at the resort, because he knows his work ethic.

“There should be a way to solve how we’re handling immigration,” says Anthony Williams, center, with his crew. “People are suffering on both sides.”

“We’re lucky because we’ve got a lot of guys like Estoban who have been here for a long time, know how to get the work done, and they seem to enjoy it… but they’re not spring chickens,” Williams says. “The people at the state unemployment agencies — their work ethic doesn’t match what we need, which is physical work, being out in the weather.”

Williams says the industry has changed over the last 20 years. Rather than managing the golf course based on its needs, he now manages the course based on how many people he can put out on the course, and their skill level.

“The way we do business is dynamically changing. There’s so many people competing for the same labor pool here — construction, landscaping, fast food. It is tough,” he says. “When you step up to the white board and you’re filling out who is going to do what, and you run out of people before you run out of jobs… sooner or later that math ends poorly for everybody.”

All photos by: Seth Jones