As a golf course and club General Manager/Chief Operating Officer, Food & Beverage Manager, and Banquets Manager I have had the unique opportunity during my management career to garner an appreciation for both the public and private sides of the golf industry; the past five years running a public golf course and multi-use recreation area, and the ten years prior to that managing private and semi-private golf clubs. It has been a wonderful career to date, filled with a host of anecdotal tales to tell that have occured while managing and facilitating the delivery of products and services to thousands upon thousands of golfers and clubhouse patrons over the past decade and a half. Some day I may well write a Sit Com about those many memories and stories.
At tournaments, banquets, meetings, weddings, funeral receptions, private functions, annual holiday events, as well as in the daily use and enjoyment of the courses, amenities and services of the properties I have managed, where there are people there are destined to be perplexing ones lurking amongst them. When alcohol is involved, their numbers multiply. While the vast majority of the thousands upon thousands of people I have met and served have been wonderful, the golf industry from my experience of it certainly also provides its fair share of folks who have made me shake my head and question whether evolution is really occuring. I can think of several who have most definitely in my mind earned the distinction of being strong contenders for Darwin Awards, and a number of others that are only slightly less deserving.
I won't get into names (sorry), but I do want to identify a few personality types of golfers within the golf clubs and communities I have served that I believe are reflective of the dispositions of similarly natured golfers at other courses and clubs across the country. There needs to be serious effort given to exterminating these types within the cultures of clubs across the country where they may exist, since their presence is insidious to the morale of the employee cadre, and often annoying to their fellow members and patrons as well. It is also cancerous to the achievement of communal unity in respect to the mutual interest of living with pride in the golf community for its course and club, and with respect for the people who work each day to make it possible for the game to be enjoyed and the services to be provided throughout each season.
The Golf Egoists
These are the golfers that one would think by listening to them, the world revolves around and could not live on without, but for their self-proclaimed expertise. Forget that a golf course is a living, breathing organism with its natural cycles of waxing and waning from season's start to end, or that because of those cycles annual maintenance programs and routines need to be completed for the health of turf to be enjoyed by thousands of golfers on every course all season long. Forget that there is a professionally trained Turf Care Management team in place in virtually all clubs today to deal with its good care, maintenance and upkeep.
The Golf Egoists are only able to see the world through lenses that reflect back at them as the only important thing or person in any and all circumstances. They judge everything within the instant they are experiencing it and give little to no consideration to what practical needs or limitations may lay behind their experienced inconvenience or dissatisfaction before they decide it's worthy of giving a manager or front-line employee a verbal tongue lashing over it.
It's like Ground Hog Day in clubhouses across the nation each spring I am certain, when 'Mr. Gripester' hunts down the Manager, Superintendent, Golf Pro and whoever else he can get to listen. He's predictably going to begin with some ramblings about his extensive expertise in golf course aeration practices and the lack of need for them, and then proceed to condemn the personnel doing it as inept bafoons who wouldn't likely be able to dress in the morning without his guidance. He doesn't say as much, but by his annual criticisms about the "crater sized holes" on the greens he certainly infers it.
News flash Golf Egoists, it's not just for you that we do the things we do; we prepare the course for thousands of players every season, not just for your rounds on it! Aeration, top-dressing and over-seeding programs, along with verticutting and fertilizer, fungicide and limited pesticide programs are an annual part of what it takes to appropriately condition a golf course and they are scheduled pretty consistently from year to year. Get used to it and stop complaining every spring and summer about the aeration of the greens, tee boxes and fairways already! You cannot maintain healthy turf conditions on high traffic greens, tee boxes and fairways without aeration practices as part of your course conditioning standards, it's as simple as that. It ideally needs to happen twice a year, every year.
If it bugs you that much to live through some bumpy greens for a couple of weeks, go fishing or go to the Range. Don't come to the course and Clubhouse to saturate us with your predictable discontent and contempt for this annual practice. Stay home and address the Honey Do Jar if you must but please, be somewhere other than where you can pollute the positive culture of the club and the energy of our team's days by casting aspersions on their good works and deflating their motivation through your perpetual grumblings. The holes should be completely filled in within a couple of weeks or so with decent weather and you can come back then, to undoubtedly complain about the pin placements, too fast or two slow of green speeds, and/or a lack of sand or poorly raked bunkers for most of the rest of your rounds during the remainder of the season instead.
If you must think that all of the course maintenance practices have been purposefully scheduled to offend your personal golf outing plans, at least get creative in coming up with some new things to complain about. The employee cadre is most certainly all too familiar with and fatigued by the Golf Egoists typical list of disgruntlements. Perhaps use that time window when the greens are recovering to take some lessons from a Golf Pro, so we can all get more enjoyment out of your use of the course and its amenities in the future.
The 'Loco-When-Parentless'
It was during a hot stretch of days in July of 2008, with day after day of blue skies and temperatures mid day exceeding 25C. It was to the point for me personally, and I think for lots of others, that rain would have been a welcome relief from the heat and humidity and there were no shortage of minds praying for it, I'm sure. I got an email one afternoon from a patron, a Doctor he claimed no less, who was infuriated that he had not seen the beverage cart on the back 9 of the course for the two hours he was out there that afternoon. He asserted that the golf course was responsible for the fact that he and his playing buddies came off the course in a state of physical dehydration as a result. We had risked their lives in the heat, as his argument went, by not ensuring that the beverage cart provided them service during the course of the back 9 holes of their round.
The beverage cart, as it turned out, was never able to catch up with that particular foursome on the back 9 that day. She was kept too busy with a tournament group on the front 9 of the course and did not see all the groups on the course on both 9s as a result. The lack of service, as disappointing as it may have been, is one thing. To assert that a golf course or club and its employees somehow have a responsibility to fulfill a parental role of ensuring that grown-ups, Doctor's no less, take enough water in their golf bags to ensure hydration when they plan to go out and play in the heat of the day during a heat streak was then, and is now, absurd! This is just one example of many I can offer of golfers and patrons who seem to turn off their brains when they drive in through the front gate.
Mother Nature is not to be triffled with, there have been examples of that on the nightly news since the invention of the television. If the golf course does not, the Clubhouse surely does provide water, whether it be for free or for sale. If you think you will need it, get some. Every golf bag I have seen for decades has side pockets on it, all power carts have beverage holders in them and the pull carts typically do as well. Load up before you leave the Clubhouse with what you will need for H2O, and don't blame others for the responsibility over your personal health and well being when you are out playing your sport of choice in the mid-day's sun; take charge of it yourself!
The beverage cart is a service to enhance food & beverage sales on a golf course, it is not a mobile first aid kiosk. It can and has provided that service as well at times no doubt, but it is not the primary reason for its utilization in daily operations and should not be relied upon as such. There is no course I have ever worked at or played at in thirty-seven years that has published a guarantee of beverage cart service on both 9s of every round. While that is the aim, it cannot be guaranteed for a variety of unpredictable potential disruptions to its service delivery; from vehicle mechanical issues to staffing shortages, or workplace health and safety reasons related to weather or other factors. Golfers are responsible for their own hydration and well-being on their rounds, not the beverage cart girls!
Playing golf in thunder storms is another one that also never ceases to baffle me; recreation golfers out risking their lives for the sake of a little white ball and a score on the card that they will likely either embelish on or commiserate about with friends and peers when they back to work anyway, and within a month or less they likely wont recall without referencing their score card again, unless they had a banner round going when the storm arrived. I have loved, lived and played golf for thirty-seven years, but I have never understood that behaviour. Testing the timing of arrival of an approaching storm is a fool's game.
I read in one article several years back that lightning can travel forward or backward of a storm as far as 10 kms. If you can hear thunder and see lightning anywhere near you, pick up the ball, seek cover, have a bite to eat and a beverage in the clubhouse, and live to play another day. I do consider it my responsibility as a golf course operator, if not legally then at least ethically, to constantly monitor the weather and to ensure as early a warning as possible to players if/when a storm system is approaching. With that said, as a Golfer, I also know that when I am out playing I am responsible for my own health and well-being, as at any other time in daily living; I wouldn't dream of delegating that much responsibility for me and my personal safety to others. Neither should you! Today there are weather radar apps that can be downloaded on all smart phones. Know the conditions expected for the day you are playing on, and be conscious of forecasted storm warnings. At the end of the day, "I didn't hear the horn" or "it really didn't look that bad" are really pathetic lines to read on a tomb stone.
The 'Rules Renegades'
These are the guys and gals at every course and in every club that quite simply choose either not to know or, as more often is the case in my experience, choose to blatantly break and disregard the established and published policies and rules that govern their use and enjoyment of the golf course and club assets to suit their personal preferences. These ones can, and often do, fill a General Manager's day, and often several days and weeks thereafter; dealing first with the discovery or reporting of their infractions, and then the resulting processes, communications, and often times adversarial interactions that are generated from them to censure the offender and try and correct the breaches in acceptable and appropriate conduct in the future.
News Flash Rules Renegades, there are policies and rules for the good governance and management of thousands of peoples' products and services needs over each golf season at courses and clubs nation-wide. There are also various Acts and regulations set by external governing entities such as municipalities, provinces and the Federal government that serve to mandate and define policy and rules needs and perameters.
When you pay a green fee, purchase a pass or buy a membership, it is your duty and responsiblity to know and to adhere to those policies and rules during your use and enjoyment of the communal asset. It is not your duty and responsibility to blatantly ignore them or test the perameters of what is acceptable or not acceptable by looking for ways to work around the spirit and intent of the instructions.
There are processes to affect desired change that is in the interest of the majority, while protecting the interests of minorities, within the internal workings of every golf course and its club's governance policies. Get to know about them and utilize them to produce change if you desire it, but do not think that simply flouting the policy or rule is okay somehow. It is not!
Every member and patron to my way of thinking has purchased rights to group-identified and defined privileges, but also has responsibilities in the enjoyment of those privileges. Primary among them is the duty to ensure that as members and patrons they are not serving to contribute to the creation of an uncomfortable work-place environment for the employees hired to serve them. It is the duty of every employer to ensure that its employees enjoy a comfortable workplace environment, and when you decide it's your place as a member of a Club to break the rules and disregard or argue with corrective measures from the employees charged with enforcing the policies and rules of the Club they serve, you are contributing to that unpleasant work-place environment.
Most of the people using golf courses and clubs in Canada are adults, or supervised by one. It would be great if the proportion of Golfers who respect the rules and their employees, as well as their courses and clubs, could see significant growth in years to come. There needs to be a renaissance in appropriate decorum and etiquette to match the "gentlemenly" history and traditions of Golf from my experience noticing its decline over the past two decades.
Rules Renegades need to be more firmly disciplined to discourage their proliferation and impact on the positive and harmoneous culture of the community. It would be even better if more Golfers lived their duties and responsibilities in the life of their courses and clubs in such as way as to ensure they don't breach policies and rules they have a duty to know and adhere to, which produces the need for them to be censured in the first place. My duties as a General Manager/Chief Operating Officer would be so much more enjoyable, and I would also likely enjoy greater longevity at a club, if I were not so often placed in the position of having to fulfill the policy and rules enforcer mandate within my job description with members who should and most often do know that what they did was not okay according to the policies and rules of the Club they joined.
There is a fundamental incompatability in the combined mandate of any employee of a Club to achieve objectives of excellence in quality service to members and to also enforce policies and rules with those we serve. It is inevitable that eventually sufficient numbers accumulate who are disgruntled for getting their wrists slapped at one time or another and can't move past that with an appreciation for the fact that they were responsible for the original infraction(s) and reason(s) they came to dislike you and your handling of their policy or rules misconduct in the first place.
Simply put, to my way of thinking the employees of a club cannot and should not be expected to be its policy and rules enforcers. Recognizing that is a controversial position to take, it is no less my experienced opinion that the volunteers who are leading the organization as the elected representatives of their memberships need to take accountablility for the policing, judgment and adjudication of complaints and infractions related to policy and rules breaches by fellow members and their guests.
Systems and processes need to be modified in clubs if they do not already exist today that remove the organization's employees, inclusive of its management personnel, from the onus and responsibility to take any action beyond reporting the policy or rules breach to the Club Captain or Membership Committee Chairman. Continuing to utilize an administrative process that involves the organizations management and/or staff in the censuring of members' misconduct is akin to allowing a dog to bite the hands of its masters. After enough teeth impressions, the hands decide to stop feeding. They have only themselves to blame for habits formed and their resulting injuries from invitiing it, but ultimately it is the dog that ends up paying for it the most.
It is the membership that establishes and sets the rules for the use and enjoyment of a Club, and it is the membership that needs to be responsible for the communal adherence to and enforcement of the policies and rules they establish for their communal use and enjoyment of their Club. It may be uncomfortable at times for fellow members to sit in judgment and discipline of one another, but that is the very peer nature of a group of people coming together in a Club for collectively agreed-upon communal objectives and purposes. There are no shortage of members more than willing to judge and report on the misconduct of their peers with a poor organizational model and associated policies in place that has encouraged them to wipe their hands of their disgruntlements once they take them to the General Manager to be dealt with, and then to typically be disgruntled further when it isn't addressed in the manner they thought it should have been.
Don't leave it up to the hired help to resolve your membership's relationship issues; that is not what our time is best spent focused on. We are there to organize, manage and facilitate the delivery of a quality conditioned golf course, along with products and services to you. You are there to establish, adopt and live by the communal policies and rules that you as a group decide on for your Club and agree to when you join one, and you need to be responsible to make sure that all amongst you live by your Club's creed. Passing that duty off through delegation to your hired help only encourages potentially negative experiences to adversly shape and impact the daily relationships between your members and your management and staff in the use and enjoyment of the Club's amenities.
If you as a Golfer identify yourself within the above noted personality types, it's time to change your ways! If you as a member of a club can recognize any of these personality types within your membership, it's time for you to do something about it!
Good, hard-working and devoted employees leave clubs because of negative club cultures that allow for the presence of uncomfortable work-place conditions, and so do members. You have a duty to your organization's employees and to your fellow members to ensure that those who you welcome into your ranks follow the policies and rules you have established for your Club. To do less is to invite decay in the quality of the experience for all and serves to weaken the social fabric in the Club, as well as the perceived value in acquiring and keeping membership in it.
Don't pass the buck to your employees. Members are likely to be kept in check and a harmonious Club culture achieved as a consequence far more effectively if they know it is a jury of their peers that will adjudicate and met out discipline for their misconduct as opposed to a Paper Tiger process by delegating membership relationship management to the Club's hired help.
Remember that Golf is a game, and belonging to a Club is a choice. With that choice come privileges as well as responsibilities. It would be great to see a growth in the numbers of members and patrons who live theirs in the daily life of their courses and clubs and in their interactions with the employees hired to deliver on their products and services needs and desires.
