Marc Eubanks (left) confers regularly with superintendent Dave Wright about The Olde Farm Golf Farm's budget.

Excuse me, Mr. Golf Course Superintendent, but is that your maintenance budget circling the drain?

While I know it's not easy for you to watch the money being sucked out of your operation, you can take comfort in knowing that you're not alone. Superintendents from across the land are lamenting about their maintenance budgets gone awry. Sharp increases in fuel prices — which seem to affect about everything from the cost of fertilizer to the price of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich — have thrown most everyone's financial situations out of whack.

And pardon me for saying this, Mr. Golf Course Superintendent, but you look a little green under the gills. And not "green" as in lush-green turf. You look "green" as in sick.

Don Sutton

Maybe it's because the boss man — whether it's your owner, general manager, green committee chairman and/or members/golfers — expect you to deliver the ultimate in turf conditions despite your blown budget. They don't care that you budgeted three bucks for a gallon of fuel for 2008, and you've been paying up to and more than four bucks since June. They also don't care that your budget has been battered because of other increased costs, such as the surcharge you must pay for a delivery of topdressing sand — a charge that costs more than the product itself!

"Costs are going through the roof, and you're being asked to do more with less," says Certified Golf Course Superintendent Don Sutton, a sales manager for AmegA Sciences, a manufacturer of wetting agents, colorants and other turf products.

Of course, how to do more with less is the $64-million question.

Sutton previously worked at a club where maintenance expenses had increased dramatically, but the club's brass still wanted the finest-looking course in town. But Sutton says he wasn't allowed to go over budget to continue giving them the look that they were accustomed, despite being hamstrung by high prices ranging from gas to fertilizer — items for which he had budgeted much less only to see their prices rise rapidly.

It's a difficult situation for a superintendent to be in because the superintendent is the last person who wants to see the course's conditions suffer, Sutton says.

"A lot of us are in this because of the pride we have for the products we put out every day," Sutton says.

There are some things superintendents can do to stay within budget without sacrificing the course's looks, which is the key to solving this dilemma. At The Olde Farm Golf Club in Bristol, Va., General Manager Marc Eubanks says the maintenance staff is spraying more plant growth regulators to reduce mowing. This is probably nothing superintendents haven't heard before, but it seems more of them are doing this to reduce costs without sacrificing quality.

"We're down to mowing fairways once a week, but you would never know it," Eubanks says. "You just find a way to get more efficient at your job so you can offset these increasing operational costs."

Mitchell Wilkerson, the certified golf course superintendent of Moss Creek Golf Club in Bluffton, S.C., says combatting budget problems equates to creating efficiencies to stay within budget. To Wilkerson, time is money. Hence, he's taking a few different approaches to reduce time spent on certain tasks to save money. For instance, Wilkerson is cutting down the time it takes to complete projects that involve fuel, such as mowing and mechanical bunker raking. Regarding the latter, Wilkerson has instructed his crew to inspect bunkers before raking them, which they would normally rake if the bunkers needed it or not. But if a bunker can get by another day without being raked, the crew doesn't rake it.