Years before the word tablet started to describe a kind of computer, veteran turf pro Roger Stewart would prepare his budgets with a very different item of the same name.

And the process seemed to stretch on forever.

“I can still remember using a ledger sheet,” says Stewart, who worked 42 years as a superintendent or director of maintenance, most recently for nearly a decade at TPC Twin Cities in Blaine, Minnesota, before he retired in 2017. “You had all these line items in a tablet and you used a calculator or an adding machine. I had to make sure I had one with a tape because I had to go back and check my numbers all the time — and I had to make sure I had a big eraser.”

This was the heart of the 1980s, when Stewart was working at Riverside Golf Club a couple miles west of the Chicago city limits, in what he calls, “the second really good job I had.” He could produce a budget back then in about a week. When Lotus and Excel entered the office and spreadsheets shifted from pages to screens, he could produce one in two or three days.

“I don’t think most younger guys in this business who never experienced any of that would even be able to get their hands around what you used to have to do,” Stewart says. “If you were going to do it right and you were going to be able to stand by that budget, you really had to spend a lot of time figuring things out. It makes it so much quicker and easier when you can do what-if scenarios on a spreadsheet. It’s like going from a horse and buggy to a rocket ship in about five years.”

Stewart will probably never prepare another budget for a club — he has since shifted gears to become an industry consultant based in the Chicago suburbs — but he learned plenty after poring over every detail of what he figures was at least 40 budget seasons.

The way you can formulate a budget and manage it today is so far and away improved. It’s not even the same process anymore.

When I first got in this business, I think a lot of superintendents just weren’t really that well-versed in being able to develop a budget and then get that budget approved — and then manage it.

I was pretty fortunate that I got out of college and went right to work for a guy named Robert Williams, a past president of the GCSAA. I worked for him for a year and I learned so much about budgeting from him. He was one of the first superintendents who really had a business point of view for the work that he did. All I had to do was observe and take it all in. That was the beginning for me and my philosophy for budgeting.

The best budget philosophy is one of transparency. I think if you’re going to ask for a large sum of money, make sure you know exactly how that money is going to be used. Don’t try to hide anything, thinking that you’re going to get this approved and use it on something else later. That can backfire. Be as transparent as you can. Don’t be afraid to explain how that money is going to impact your ability to provide the very best playing conditions, which in turn translates into potentially more revenue for the club. Stand up for what you believe. Make sure you’ve done your homework. Make sure you’ve put effort into those numbers in the budget so you feel comfortable going in and justifying it.

How do you manage your budget throughout the year? How do you manage it with the knowledge that, every month, your department has an impact on the club? Because we have to start understanding that we’re not only the biggest expense at the club but in many cases we’re also the biggest point of revenue. If you understand that, you’re in a much better position to defend your budget, not only during the approval process but also as you manage it throughout the year. There’s still room for improvement there.

Get some kind of budget tracking program and use it religiously. Make sure you’re following good business principles, like tracking your invoices. It’s not that unusual, every month, to have something not right. Protect yourself in that regard. People who are really on top of budget tracking know what’s going on every day when they come to work. If you’re doing it every day, if you’re paying attention to the numbers all the time, nothing should come as a surprise to you.

Just being prepared is a tactic. Make sure you’ve done as much as you possibly can to justify, in your mind, why you’re asking for what you’re asking for. I wasn’t always successful. It’s not like I walked in, gave a 30-minute presentation and everybody said, “Done! Let’s go home!” That did happen more than once but it wasn’t that often.

Be willing to put in enough time to be as prepared as you possibly can be.

It’s not about who’s on top at a club. That’s not what it’s about at all. What it’s about is being able to be at the table, and being respected at the table — whether it’s a budget presentation, or a meeting with the golf committee, or preparing for a member-guest.

Most clubs now look at it from a business perspective. If you turn in a budget and they approve it, their expectation is that you will manage that budget and you will be within that budget, and if you’re not, if you’re over, you need to have some very, very compelling reasons for every line item that you’re over.

What’s wrong with coming in below budget? You don’t want to go into the year with the goal of coming in under budget, but if the season dictates it and you have some savings, then why shouldn’t you? In the end, it’s going to probably help the club in some fashion and it’s going to put you in a much better position the next year when you go back to get your next budget approved.

You need to know what your local Home Depot or landscapers or lawn care or nurseries pay, because we compete with them all for the same labor.

What are you providing them? Not just what are you paying them, but what are you providing them? Can they get good health insurance? Do you have any kind of retirement plan? And then you have to look at the pay scale. Do you want to be a minimum wage employer? And what does that mean? Generally, being a minimum-wage employer is reflective of the caliber of applicants you’re going to get to fill those jobs.

I worked for a GM when I was at Riverside Golf Club, kind of a legend in the Chicago area, he’s passed away. His name was Bill Heald. He was a great guy. He said to me one day, “You know, if you take away the golf course, all you really have is an overpriced restaurant and a really overpriced haberdashery in the middle of a residential neighborhood.” He had a few other zingers that were really good but that stuck with me. He understood that there’s a relationship between what a golf course brings to a facility and how successful that facility is. And I think that gets forgotten at a lot of places.

It’s easy to look at a golf course just as an expense.

Matt LaWell is Golf Course Industry’s managing editor.