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Brisk business brings brutal dilemmas for golf course maintenance professionals. The dilemmas become especially acute as Labor Day approaches.
Up North, crews filled with teenagers and early twentysomethings shrink in mid-August. Returning to the classroom is great for a young person’s life trajectory, although their sudden departures overburden already physically and mentally fatigued crews.
Down South, important fall events loom. Way, way down South, the calendar indicates snowbirds are plotting annual migrations.
Squeezing in cultural practices around constant play is tricky. Secretly, more than a few superintendents will tell you aerification brings a reprieve from the reoccurring frantic hustles created by packed tee sheets.
But there’s little reprieve from a chaotic year like 2025. The weather, in the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic and Midwest, went from soggy to sultry. Temperate regions such as the Pacific Northwest turned arid, intensifying the need to improve the infrastructure required to handle heavy play.
Consider the current stretch a gigantic golf paradox.
What’s great for golfers — and the people who oversee overall industry finances — induces significant angst for superintendents and crews.
How should a prideful industry professional handle the paradox?
The diversity of landscapes makes golf special. Enduring commonalities exist among the people who maintain those landscapes. But the professionals comprising golf course maintenance teams have different outlooks, goals and life responsibilities.
It’s OK to feel overwhelmed right now. It’s OK to feel that working long hours will yield little personal reward.
Some professionals can’t wait to move onto something else. Others might view the past few months as defining career moments with significant long-term payouts and fulfillment.
Packed into the paradox lurks industry business realities offering perspective. After a slow start due primarily to sogginess, golf enters the post-Labor Day portion of 2025 in another strong spot. Rounds played through June 2025 were down just 0.6 percent compared to the first six months of 2024, according to Golf Datatech. The courses you spectacularly maintain were responsible for supporting a record 545 million rounds in 2024. The need and demand for your talents has never been greater.
Anecdotes and data from our travels, conversations and email inboxes suggest enormous July 2025 numbers await.
On a rainy Thursday, I sat in a cozy upstate New York clubhouse with an operator who welcomed a slow business afternoon toward the end of a bustling July. The operator, who executes every task from serving drinks to mowing playing surfaces, needed solitude to catch up on paperwork and rest. A day later, on the return drive from upstate New York, I received an upbeat call from an employee at a Midwest facility that posted the biggest Friday play and revenue totals in its 20-year history. The month included GolfNow, the world’s largest online tee broker, reporting that it booked a record 630,000 rounds during the Thursday-Sunday July 4th weekend.
The situation is in start contrast to the pre-pandemic and Great Recession years, when millions of lucrative tee times went unfilled and thousands of private clubs offered steep initiation and dues reductions to remain viable. Many industry professionals who experienced the Great Recession recall months when they were unsure if they would receive paychecks on agreed upon dates.
The current conundrum facing superintendents and crews represents an unintended consequence of a bustling golf market. Terrific golf demand makes the tactical parts of the job tougher. Windows to execute work tighten; more eyes on a course amplify the scrutiny placed upon conditions.
As overwhelming as it all seems in late August, the situation always improves as daylight diminishes.
Perspective also helps grounded professionals endure challenging stretches. The busyness caused by robust golf activity in a year like 2025 beats the business alternative.
Try coping with tricky weather and lukewarm golf demand simultaneously.
Guy Cipriano is Golf Course Industry’s publisher + editor-in-chief.
