Pressure Packed Season Continues

It's been a challenging year to say the least.  We are happy with the course considering these challenges, but we are not satisfied by any means.  The following is a long winded version of some of the key issues and how they've impacted us this year.  As always, we are excited for what's ahead.  If you'd like to save some time just know that COVID, staffing, record setting rounds played, and weather are combining to make life tough for course conditions this year.  

For the die hard reader here is some more detail...

Currently we are under a great deal of pressure from a few different factors.  Starting with the obvious, COVID put a squeeze on staffing from the outset of the season.  Losing two key revenue sources in an instant and not knowing what impact the pandemic would have on membership dues and utilization, we were forced, but wise, to hold back on staffing levels and hours worked among the staff already on board.  Not to mention, it was not ideal to have a fully staffed course with the need to keep people apart from one another.  Our utility cart fleet isn't big enough allow a full staff to have their own cart.  With a smaller staff we have had to eliminate a number of detail jobs, cut back on mowing frequencies, and other general inputs to all areas of the course and club grounds.  Some of the reductions were quick to show up and others have been more gradual.  We want much more than we've been able to provide.  

Pressure from COVID is compounded by the pleasant surprise of a booming golf schedule.  While the loss of some much needed wedding and golf outing revenue still hurts, memberships and golf course use are bright spots.  This is awesome, but it takes a toll on course conditions in two ways.  Obviously it puts more wear and tear on everything.  Individual carts coupled with more rounds means much more compaction throughout the course.  Popular tee boxes are much more worn than they'd be in a typical September and ball marks are off the charts.  Not so obvious is the reduction in available maintenance time due to the uptick in course usage.  Initially the loss of outings afforded us the time on Mondays to accomplish much needed tasks and made having a smaller staff less painful.  Now that outings are back, we've lost a lot of time for working.  The one hour gap we created on the tee sheet on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays has been a huge help.  However, with the limited staff, we aren't able to capitalize on that as much as we'd like.  We'd love to start the day earlier than we do, but the noise ordinance in the community handcuffs us in that regard.  If you've waited until the last minute to make a tee time recently, you know what I mean when I say we've been busy.  A year ago you could walk up and play without a tee time.  Now it's booked from 8 until often times after 5.  Again, this is awesome!  It just puts a damper on course upkeep.  We'll need to address this for next year or the course will continue to suffer.  More staff and some equipment changes to be more productive are critical. 

In addition to COVID and a very busy tee sheet, recent weather has caused some major headaches.  With a full staff and/or a less crowded tee sheet, we might have conquered the weather related challenges ok.  However, nearly 15" of rain in August put us way behind in every aspect.  Fighting through the excess turf growth and dealing with the massive clipping mess would keep a full staff swamped.  With the crowds of golf and the limited staff, getting back to "normal" with fairways, roughs, bunker slopes, bunkers, etc...seems to be taking forever.  Shorter days and cooler temperatures have started to slow down the zoysia grass so we should get fairways and approaches cleaned up and tight again soon.  Mike has been overwhelmed with equipment upkeep due to the bumper crop of grass we've been mowing.  Keeping reels and blades sharp is a non stop job.  Not to mention the "surprises" that need attention.   

We can't do much about the pandemic or the weather, but we are working hard to find good staff.  We are blessed to have a lot of interest from students, but they are back in school now and really only help us on the weekends.   The heavy load during the week is not manageable at the moment, but we are starting to trend upward with some recent new hires.  Unfortunately, we've struggled with some new hires who either vanished without warning or decided it was a tougher job than they were capable of doing and politely said goodbye.  We love the ones we have and hope to find some others to join us soon.  

Clippings wouldn't be so much of an issue if we could mow more often

10 more would be about right