Saving $$ on Maintenance

[JSPayne]

Everyone's being hit by it...the downturn in the economy has undoubtly not left many clubs untouched by some amount of financial woes. Everyone has IDEAS about how to handle the sluggish daily fee play and the loss of dues paying members, but I'm interested to hear some solid, concrete examples. If they can be backed up by actual savings numbers that'd be even better.

I've managed the cuts to our maintenance budget in a variety of ways, but I don't yet see the light at the end of the tunnel and I'm hoping members of this forum may enlighten me (as well as perhaps others here) on successes that they've had or seen (please don't just give me ideas.....I get them everyday....I'm looking for tried and tested results) either on increasing revenues or, more up my alley, creative ways to reduce expenditures.

Trust me when I say that the obvious things usually talked about here have already been done at my facility for some time. Hope some of you have some unique and successful suggestions.

[Adam Clayman]

JS- How about chronicling what you've done?

Your posts is so vague on specifics that someone might assume you've done what they would suggest and you'll miss out.

Since fuel is so costly It seems like an easy place to start.

Mow less often.

[Philippe Binette]

no more petunias!!!

[Tyler Kearns]

Rake the bunkers every second day, although that means the members expectations have to be "lowered" - which is a difficult task.

TK

[JSPayne]

It would be hard to describe all that we've done, or attempted to do. And I still am interested in any or all ideas, as even though I may have tried them, others having the same issues with budget cutbacks may not have. In regards to the last three points:

-Cutting back on mowing/gas use: Currently, since the growth of the grass has slowed down, we mow very minimally: Roughs, tees, approaches, and fairways only once a week (2x/wk in the summer), greens are mowed or rolled 5-6 times a week during the winter and 7-9 times a week during the summer (more than 7x/wk means we double mow or mow & roll occasionally to increase speed). I really do believe our mowing frequencies are already at a bare minimum to keep up with the growth rate of the grass in order to keep the course reasonably playable.

-We have no annual flowers

-Bunker maintenance: Currently, with low winter play, we mainly spot rake 3x/week and full rake on the weekends for our customers who pay top dollar. In the busy/tournament season, we probably full rake 3x/wk and spot 3x/wk. It takes 2 guys 1.5 hours to spot rake and 2 guys 3 hours to full rake. We have 39 bunkers totalling over 93,000 sq. ft.

More suggestions?

[Mike Nuzzo]

keep the greens as nice as you can
keep the best super you can
those bunkers sound large - but at 1 man taking care of them might not justify shrinking them - unless they can be improved too - washouts?
how much rain do you get usually?
what is your maint budget?
management company or individually owned?
you can reduce amount of fairway at the beginning of the hole usually.


cheers

[JSPayne]

Ok, maybe a bit more information would be helpful to some:

We're an 18 hole mid to high end daily fee property ($67 peak weekend green fees) run by a management company in CA. We're wall-to-wall ryegrass with bentgrass greens and do around 55K rounds a year. My current crew is 10 total, including myself and my mechanic (no assistant). Our annual total budget is just over 500K (excluding water costs). Since golf course maintenance is usually the biggest budget of any depeartment on the property, we're the ones constantly being asked find savings. I'm just trying to find a new avenue to explore possibilities that I may not have discovered yet or am overlooking. Or especially to hopefully find unique and creative ways that other supers or memberships have found to help the bottom line from an expense standpoint.

Also figured it would be a good sharing/brainstorming forum in general for this type of focused discussion group intent on doing all we can to save and sustain our business models.

[Adam Clayman]

I really do believe our mowing frequencies are already at a bare minimum to keep up with the growth rate of the grass in order to keep the course reasonably playable.

Reasonable appears to be the problem. 7-9 times a week? That is just placating the real pussies that cannot adapt to a slightly (and I mean SLIGHT) slower speeds.

I assume you are at some very high end club (is that correct?) where these ridiculous expectations have helped encourage the speed race and proliferate the Augusta syndrome.

[JSPayne]

Sorry if I laugh a little Adam.....but if you ask most supers, 7-9 times a week is VERY minimal. Think about it.....that's mowing once per day only with maybe an extra cut or roll thrown in for the primetime paying customers on the weekend.

Trust me when I say I wish greens could be mowed less frequently, but there are issues with that, especially during the actively growing months:
 
-We don't just mow for speed.....we have to keep the putting surface uniform, consistant and smooth. We can mow after just one 24 hour period and collect POUNDS of grass clippings, even at a reasonably high mowing height  (0.130") and minimal fertilizer applied.

-Plus, mowing at such low heights, the general rule of thumb for health of the plant is to never cut more than a third of the leaf blade off at any one time. Doing so can stress or scalp or damage the plant, making it play horribly, look ugly and be more susceptible to diseases

-Even if you can get away without mowing to spare the plant some stress, you inevitably need to roll to keep the greens smooth and consistant enough to keep putts on line and at least somewhat predictable.

And no, I don't work at Augsta or anything close to it. My greens usually roll in the 9-10' range and even when they aren't, luckily, my patrons say they at least FEEL like the are rolling faster!

[Kalen Braley]

Can you get rid of some of your fixed costs like equipment and have ur guys work split shifts to get it all in?

One crew in AM, another in the PM?

[Ian Dalzell]

Kelly
Sorry to jump in here but when you start suggesting that you cut out the pro I have to take exception.  The PGA pro of today can sell the game, instruct the game, build customer service, sell equipment, get a cup of coffee and organize a tournament, to mention but a few of our skill sets put to good use each and every day at courses all around the country.

Cutting labor, particularly front-line customer service personnel, is rarely the good choice.  Perhaps golfer expectations should be considered - it really has gotten out of control in the US.  Remember that golf is an outdoor game, played in a field, that does not always have to be manicured.  Take the odd "questionable lie" as a challenge, the tough lie in the bunker as part of the game.

Don't look to the PGA pro to hit the bricks.  Thanks.

Ian

[Joe Hancock]

 
-We don't just mow for speed.....we have to keep the putting surface uniform, consistant and smooth. We can mow after just one 24 hour period and collect POUNDS of grass clippings, even at a reasonably high mowing height  (0.130") and minimal fertilizer applied.

JSPayne,

I know I'm from an entirely different camp maintenance-wise, but when I was a super, I always enjoyed when my regimes allowed me to triplex mow, once a day, and not have to empty the baskets until all 19 greens were cut. That happened often, by the way.

Joe

[Bradley Anderson]

It would be hard to describe all that we've done, or attempted to do. And I still am interested in any or all ideas, as even though I may have tried them, others having the same issues with budget cutbacks may not have. In regards to the last three points:

-Cutting back on mowing/gas use: Currently, since the growth of the grass has slowed down, we mow very minimally: Roughs, tees, approaches, and fairways only once a week (2x/wk in the summer), greens are mowed or rolled 5-6 times a week during the winter and 7-9 times a week during the summer (more than 7x/wk means we double mow or mow & roll occasionally to increase speed). I really do believe our mowing frequencies are already at a bare minimum to keep up with the growth rate of the grass in order to keep the course reasonably playable.

-We have no annual flowers

-Bunker maintenance: Currently, with low winter play, we mainly spot rake 3x/week and full rake on the weekends for our customers who pay top dollar. In the busy/tournament season, we probably full rake 3x/wk and spot 3x/wk. It takes 2 guys 1.5 hours to spot rake and 2 guys 3 hours to full rake. We have 39 bunkers totalling over 93,000 sq. ft.

More suggestions?

JS,

You're operations sound lean to me. Let me ask you, what percentage of the club's overall budget is your department?

[David Lott]

Is the facility running a positive cash flow? Can you service your debt? If the answer to these questions is yes, then you should not cut anything but the rate of return to ownership. The people who come and pay the fees are your life blood. Take care of them first.

[JSPayne]

Joe.....good point, I'd like to have that too, but I need to use alot more PGRs to get there. And I also worry that if I slow the growth of my grass down to that rate, it won't heal and recover well from the heavy traffic and innumerable ball marks we get being a busy public course.

Bradley.....obviously our budget makes up a huge chunk. My payroll is probably 30% higher than the pro shop (who has a couple desk guys, pro, cart kids and marshalls) and the "grill" who operates with often no more than one cook and one server. And they don't need much of an other expense budget as they mainly buy goods to be sold. Any maintenance department is usually the biggest expense line of the company, but without a golf course, there's no product for the rest of the departments to sell.

David.....the blessing of being part of a management company is that regardless of how we're doing as a stand alone business, we're expected to help the entire company make savings if the majority of the courses are doing poorly. So even if we have a positive net flow, we still are asked to cut our budgets to help the overall bottom line. Which is all understandable to me, but I think I find it a bit harder to cut into what I am operating off of than what some of our other courses (which are mainly very high end private) may be operating off of. There is an actual "bottom line" number it takes to maintain ANY golf course to a "merely playable" level for the amount you're charging your customers and I feel we're nearing it, but obviously I'm still being asked to find savings without compromising the product that is intended to still produce the highest rate of return possible.

[Scott Stambaugh]

JS-

A few things we have looked at the past few years-

Employees- I don't subscribe to any of the advice people give about doing things a reduced number of times and somehow saving money in the process.  If you rake bunkers a few days a week, are the staff members not coming to work on other days?  Not likely.  So the SandPro doesn't go out, I'm sure something else is.  We constantly look for ways to improve staff efficiency, but there isn't a real dollar savings to it to the club.  At the end of the day, it's still eight hours.  I'm sure you can attest- I've yet to run out of work for my staff.  One thing I have done (not sure if its possible for you with only ten employees) is increased the number of salaried employees I have on staff- no overtime.

Outside contractors- we continue to try and eliminate any outside contractors doing work for us.  All the little service calls and contracts start to add up.  We have even gotten costs reduced on things that we can't eliminate (uniform service, fuel delivery) by shopping vendors and companies

Generics- I'm sure you've done your homework on generic pesticides, quite a bit of savings to be had here.

Topdressing sand- not sure what you do in terms of topdressing, but if your owners don't mind a slightly coarser material, the cost difference in a lower quality sand is substantial. 

Course accessories- eliminating as much of the nonsense on the course as you can (benches, ballwashers, etc...) means carrying less inventory, less repair and maintenance and less loss/replacement from vandalism.

Anyway, there's a few off the top of my head...

Scott

[Bradley Anderson]

Bradley.....obviously our budget makes up a huge chunk. My payroll is probably 30% higher than the pro shop (who has a couple desk guys, pro, cart kids and marshalls) and the "grill" who operates with often no more than one cook and one server. And they don't need much of an other expense budget as they mainly buy goods to be sold. Any maintenance department is usually the biggest expense line of the company, but without a golf course, there's no product for the rest of the departments to sell.

JS,

Your total budget might be less than 20% of the clubs total expenses. While I am not saying that you can control that, let me just say that we need to be careful on GCA with these kinds of threads, because they may lead people to think that the maintenance operations are the big expense of running clubs. Often they are not the big cost.

[Mike_Young]

JS,
Can you tell them to get rid of the management company?    

[Steve Okula]

Sorry if I laugh a little Adam.....but if you ask most supers, 7-9 times a week is VERY minimal. Think about it.....that's mowing once per day only with maybe an extra cut or roll thrown in for the primetime paying customers on the weekend.

Trust me when I say I wish greens could be mowed less frequently, but there are issues with that, especially during the actively growing months:
 
-We don't just mow for speed.....we have to keep the putting surface uniform, consistant and smooth. We can mow after just one 24 hour period and collect POUNDS of grass clippings, even at a reasonably high mowing height  (0.130") and minimal fertilizer applied.

-Plus, mowing at such low heights, the general rule of thumb for health of the plant is to never cut more than a third of the leaf blade off at any one time. Doing so can stress or scalp or damage the plant, making it play horribly, look ugly and be more susceptible to diseases

-Even if you can get away without mowing to spare the plant some stress, you inevitably need to roll to keep the greens smooth and consistant enough to keep putts on line and at least somewhat predictable.

And no, I don't work at Augsta or anything close to it. My greens usually roll in the 9-10' range and even when they aren't, luckily, my patrons say they at least FEEL like the are rolling faster!

I'm a super, and 7-9 times/week sounds like a lot. It sounds like you could use a solid Primo program.

I've saved money with PGR's, a lot of money over the years. Reduced mowing frequencies mean less people required on staff, savings on fuel and equipment repar/replacement, and less inconvenience to the customers.

On greens, with PGR's, I triplex daily, empty baskets once at the end, and stimp consistently over 10 feet. 

[Adrian_Stiff]

Frequency of mowing is the big save, fairways back to once a week, greens every other day, perhaps both days weekends, no overtime pay at weekends (time in lieu). If you are going to save money you on maintenance the conditions WILL not be as good, if the conditions are as good then you were wasting money before.
The probem really is that labour costs which mean job loss is where this road leads and that road fuels everything into an economic downturn.

[Bradley Anderson]

Frequency of mowing is the big save, fairways back to once a week, greens every other day, perhaps both days weekends, no overtime pay at weekends (time in lieu). If you are going to save money you on maintenance the conditions WILL not be as good, if the conditions are as good then you were wasting money before.
The probem really is that labour costs which mean job loss is where this road leads and that road fuels everything into an economic downturn.

No way you can mow fairways once a week, and greens every other day in America.

[JSPayne]

I'm a super, and 7-9 times/week sounds like a lot. It sounds like you could use a solid Primo program.

I've saved money with PGR's, a lot of money over the years. Reduced mowing frequencies mean less people required on staff, savings on fuel and equipment repar/replacement, and less inconvenience to the customers.

On greens, with PGR's, I triplex daily, empty baskets once at the end, and stimp consistently over 10 feet. 

So if you triplex daily, that means 7x a week right? Then how is my 7-9x/week alot? And this is not just mowing.....I probably mow 5 days and roll 2. I'd be very interested to learn of a mid-high end club that does not mow their greens at least 6-7x/wk during the growing season.

[Bradley Anderson]

Growth Regulators have been used for 20 years now at most clubs. Those costs savings have been in place for a long time already.

Letting rough go native is more of a delayed cost, than a true cost savings, because after two or three years those native areas start to cost real money to maintain - they become a breeding ground for thistle and volunteer softwood trees. In either case the cost savings in letting 20% of the rough go wild doesn't add up to much more than $6,000 or so in labor and fuel.

What this is all leading to is eliminating overtime pay, and your higher paid staff positions.  

This is interesting: every fall on parkland courses there is a lot of money spent on mulching leaves. And then you have your forestry work of trimming low branches up, dead wood/liability branches. And you have to pick up sticks every day and all of that wood has to be chipped and hauled off site. One of of my assistants took over a links course with no trees, and his labor budget was incredibly low compared to my parkland course. Every time that he and I put a pencil to it we came up with similiar square footages of bunkers, greens, tees, and fairways maintained, but there was something about not having trees to deal with that really saved him a lot of money.

[Bradley Anderson]

JS,

I don't care if you mow your greens 14 times a week - that is the one feature of your golf course that you have to keep in prime condition. Almost half the game is played on the greens. And if you want your club to be successful you can't skimp on greens. That's like stepping over dollars to pick up dimes.

[Adam Clayman]

Sorry if I laugh a little Adam.....but if you ask most supers, 7-9 times a week is VERY minimal.

Feel free to laugh. But, The most profitable course I've ever seen, mowed greens every other day. They only did 113k rounds annually, so I wouldn't necessarily use them as your model.


Asking most supers in an interesting comment. It implies the majority are always right. I think that is one of the flaws in the status quo.

You asked for ideas on how to save money, laughing at a good one, demonstrates there's a deep problem within golf and it maintenance expectations. I suspect that problem's root is coming from a textbook.