Paying for your Super to attend the annual GCSAA show...I was there last year and it's like sending your wife to a seminar at Neiman Marcus..

It would be cheaper in the long run and better for your course if you sent them on a seven day jaunt to Scotland/Ireland every year..

Isn't the root cause for this more complicated than simply the Augusta syndrome?

Isn't the root cause for the ramp up of these expenses not just that grass has to be kept green, but that it has to be kept (a) green, AND (b) very, very short (at least compared to cutting heights 15 or so years ago)?

Wouldn't letting grass (even green grass ) grow higher reduce the need for the super new mowers and wall to wall irrigation and reduce the overall need for water?

Could the root cause for these increased costs be more cutting heights than the Augusta syndrome?

Bob

Don,
I think some of us keep a niche building affordable courses.  No different than a home builder.

BOB,
I say you are correct with the height of grass...higher greens+ less expensive constrcution, less chemicals, riding mowers vs walkers and it goes on and on

I agree completely with Mr. Busch. If golf in this country had never changed over from its basis of clubs+munis to the new model where housing+resorts drive the economics the game would be much cheaper.

My basic idea is this. Imagine that the only money coming into the system is the money people are willing to pay for the opportunity to play golf. That's basically a subset of the money flowing into the golf economy today which consists of the money people are willing to pay to play golf plus the money people are willing to pay to have a beautiful green golf course located in their neighborhood. The huge magnitude of this non-golf capital flow is so huge distorts the whole system.

I can see this effect in my own club situation. My former home course was built with housing-development money and both the development and the golf course went through multiple bankruptcies and fire-sale changes of ownership. Throughout it all, though, the resources of the course went first and foremost into a bright-green, lush and perfect state of conditioning 365 days/year which generally resulted in good playing conditions but at a very high cost. Now the whole thing has been purchased by a big-money developer who is taking it upmarket with monthly dues twice as high as the next most expensive clubs in the area, a $20-million clubhouse and staff out the wazoo to do everything short of handing you toilet paper while you sit on the commode. They are now in the process of switching to mowing all the green with walking mowers daily because no other course in town does that, for instance.

As SBusch mentions, most of the non-housing-development courses in town try to maintain the same level of bright-green conditioning that the owners of those expensive houses demand of the course in their back yard. So the whole system gets ratcheted up yet another notch by the arrival of one deep-pockets developer in the market. A very distorted system from the point of view of your basic cost-sensitive "core golfer".

"Tom Paul,
You really crack me up! Your post was the funniest thing I have read on GCA. I can't believe Tom Doak took you seriously."

Garland:

No problem at all. My humor on here generally falls somewhere between the cracks or between the lines. It's just fine with me if some see it and others don't----frankly it's better that way and probably more productive too.

I'm glad TomD took it seriously and answered seriously. Despite my humor I do realize many of these issues are very important and serious ones, and I don't mean to totally make light of them.

There do seem to be some structural problems in this nation in some of these ways. It really is like the general standard of living in this nation has sort of priced some things and some tasks right out of existence (for Americans anyway)!

It's ironic too that some of these immigration (or illegal immigration) issues are coming up right now---eg this illegal immigrant baby "birth-right" issue on one side and some of these American vigilantes manning our Southwestern border on the other side of the issue. I guess irony is putting it mildly!

Is our American standard of liiving and its residual effects beginning to price American manual or menial labor right out of existence? It probably is to some extent. Do programs like H2B or even illegal immigrants across our Southwestern border fill that void? Sure they do in many cases even working for legalized minimum wage and not below it.

The other day a couple of Fox Chapel representatives came east to my club and were talking to our super about a lot of things. The H2B program and its Mexican workers came up. I asked our super if he pays the Mexican H2B workers the same wage he pays American workers and he said absolutely. But then he said from his perspective the wage is not the only issue. He said the H2B guys are twice as productive as their American counterparts and they are about ten times more reliable day in and day out and those sorts of things effect and impact what he does every day which impacts what goes on with the golf course.

I don't care if TomD may've missed the humor or perhaps even noticed it and decided to get serious anyway because he feels these are serious issues. He's right, and frankly I feel his opinion on all these things, including the opinions of our other half dozen or so professional architect contributors to this site are the most important opinions of all our contributors.

These are the realities. Somebody needs to fill the labor void on the lowest rung amongst Americans. I don't see Mexicans being forced across the border legally or illegally. They're coming on their own and sometimes at great peril to themselves because they obviously feel there's a better life for them over here.

This is the way the world works---it's a dynamic that'll probably never end.

It's all in the site.

As we always conclude the sites that golf courses are being built on are now often the "left overs" and it takes a lot more to make golf work on them than when we had better more conducive sites.

If you look at the timing of this the costs have increased siginificantly as time has gone on and sites have become weaker.

If you think construction costs have been high lately just wait for all the numbers we will be seeing in the near future.  It was not that long ago that dirt moving numbers were under $1/yard.  Now fuel costs that much or even more.  It is above $3 now in many areas.  We used to be able to add a little more dirt moving during the work but now it comes at much higher cost to consider.  (This could be a good thing in that all those designers that move the dirt 4 different times to get something right may not be able to as much any more )

Concrete costs have risen substantially in the last 2 years because we can not produce enough cement in the US and other markets (China) are grabbing it.  Carts can translate to $600,000 worth of concrete on a job.

Petroleum!  Just imagine all the things that are effected by petroleum.  The irrigation companies keep telling me this is their biggest influence on price.

Once courses are open it still get to labor costs based on expectation.  I believe the Golf Course Owners Assoc is trying to gather better data on expenses and such but you can ask superintendents to break down their staff numbers based on acres of maintained turf and landscape and see how it just adds up.

DbD

The other day a couple of Fox Chapel representatives came east to my club and were talking to our super about a lot of things. The H2B program and its Mexican workers came up. I asked our super if he pays the Mexican H2B workers the same wage he pays American workers and he said absolutely. But then he said from his perspective the wage is not the only issue. He said the H2B guys are twice as productive as their American counterparts and they are about ten times more reliable day in and day out and those sorts of things effect and impact what he does every day which impacts what goes on with the golf course.

Now I know where I'll find my next few hires....

The Stimpmeter

Pat,

Good info. Happy to report that I can't relate to any of those stats because of how cheap I am. I understand the labor costs, but can't understand the amount of labor some of these courses expend to maintain. For instance, we MIGHT rake our bunkers thoroughly once in any given week, but that's only if I have my priorities screwed up. If the golfers want a better lie in the sand, then they can do their part in providing it...and they know that's the deal here.

John K,

I like your idea of sending the supers oversees. In fact, because I'm self employed and can't afford to go, I'll give you the opportunity to subsidize my trip in the name of education. I always did like how you think!

Joe

Pat,
How are you?
You are right on and I still say most of this goes back to HOC conditions.
Mike

Mike,
There is a semi-private here in Alpharetta which I have long considered to be the single most overpriced course in the area.  Last year they lost their greens trying to kill Poa in the spring so that they could maintain super-high greens speeds, and fired their long-time super.  Now they've regrassed the greens, and are keeping them way, way too fast for the contours of the greens, to the point of being unplayable to some pin positions.  One can only imagine how much all of that has cost, AND reduced play there.  They're now running membership specials of all sorts, and scrambling for play.  I'm not in the industry by any means, but I'd have to agree with you about HOC, which would also tie back into the labor issue.

There's no question that F&B ops lose money at private clubs.  The question is "what element has increased"?  F&B operations have always lost money.  I'd say things have gotten better recently as formal dining has been cut back, etc.  I do think that maintenance costs have gone up in the last few years, but I think it has mainly to do with new courses with bigger budgets than older courses drastically increasing their budgets.

Golf club and equipment manufacturers.

The equipment manufacturers would have you believe that you can buy game. When people spend the bucks, they find they still don't have game. They become less unenthusiastic and play less. This costs the courses money. They try to win the golfers back by improving conditions, thereby adding to the cost.

S.:

The last time we had a similar discussion I thought you implied that architects were responsible for these high costs.  [My reply pointed out the areas of architecture which have increased budgets.]

However, of the several areas of maintenance you mentioned, only bunker-raking (plus wider fairways, which you did not mention) is in any way related to the design of the course.

I do agree with you ... it's the primping details like edging cart paths and striping fairways that have risen the most in percentage terms.  Any golf club worthy of its name twenty years ago would not have spent a dime on those things.  Today golfers seem to expect even the out of play areas to look perfect.

P.S.  Don't worry about cracking down on illegal immigration too much.  Most politicians know deep down that a lot of our economy is riding on their backs; they're just grandstanding for the high percentage of their constituents who don't understand how the system works.