Grass times at Turfmont High

Matt Neff

I recently had the opportunity to speak to a high school class about a career in golf course maintenance. It was a turf and horticulture class, so most of the students were interested in green industry careers. Given the current labor situation in our business, I was excited to have the chance to tell them more about what we do, and, I hoped, persuade a few of them to seriously consider a career on the golf course.

I was also a little nervous, because public speaking isn’t my favorite thing to do. This undoubtedly is a direct result of the time in elementary school when I completely froze — and I mean completely froze — in front of the entire class during a speech competition. The teacher had to come up to the front of the room and walk me back to my desk, where I sat, catatonic, for at least an hour.

In the ensuing years I’ve progressed from paralyzing fear to mild discomfort, but to be honest, I found speaking to a group of high school students to be more difficult than speaking to a group of peers or a search committee in an interview setting.

Having interacted with several high school kids on the crew over the years, I know that they sometimes can be a tough group to connect with and keep engaged. However, this class was extremely polite. About a quarter of them were truly interested in the talk, another quarter were slightly interested and the rest were courteous enough to feign interest for the hour I was given.

I certainly gained a newfound respect for teachers, and now feel a little guiltier for all the times I was less than attentive in class. So, to all my former teachers — some of whom probably think I ended up working at a convenience store, not as a part-time college job, but as a career – I’m sorry. That especially includes my French teacher, who likely as a result of my repeated assertions (which have thus far proved correct) that I would never actually need to know French, flat-out hated me.

I didn’t necessarily seek out the chance to speak to these students, but maybe our industry should be seeking out these opportunities. I believe this is an awesome profession, and I’m quite certain most people in this business agree. In light of the current labor situation, we should be more proactive in spreading the word, especially to students who already have an interest in this type of work.

The demand for qualified people seemingly well outpaces the supply. It takes only one look at the industry job boards to see that people are leaving the business in relatively high numbers, and because turf program enrollments are way down it’s become increasingly difficult to replace them.

This might be the best time in the last 10 to 15 years to get into golf course maintenance. There is opportunity everywhere, and that opportunity presumably will continue up the career ladder in the coming years as more long-tenured assistants leave the business and veteran superintendents retire or move on to other opportunities. In short, I think people entering the profession now won’t encounter the same difficulty advancing as those who came in within the last 10 years.

I realize that labor availability can be cyclical and that there are trends in popular college majors. (Is every other seasonal guy you hire lately a sports management major?) But I’ve heard more than a few people who have been in this business for a long time say they haven’t seen anything like this during their careers.

If superintendents and assistants are truly the caretakers of the game, then we need to do what we can to ensure the long-term success of our profession, and ultimately, the game of golf itself