Golf Labor Ratings: What the Superintendent Survey Supports

What the labor rating shows and what it cannot yet prove

Golfdom reports that in the 2022 Capital and Labor Survey from GCSAA, 63 percent of superintendents described the labor market as bad or very bad. That is the reading a board can cite today, with its source named. It is a sentiment measure, not a count of open jobs.

The year is not settled. An MSU newsletter item that surfaced in the same search places the 63 percent figure in 2018, and only Golfdom's search summary dates it to 2022. Pull the original GCSAA report before a board minute carries the year.

The older points that often sit beside the 63 percent reading, 19 percent in 2012 and 45 percent in 2016, were not confirmed in our research. This article therefore states no decade trend. The useful lesson is narrower, and it concerns hiring.

Where the 9 percent and 28 percent figures stand

Golfdom also reports that only 9 percent of superintendents rated the labor market good or very good, with 28 percent in the neutral band. It attributes those numbers to the most recent GCSAA survey it cited, but gives no survey year. Treat both as undated.

Read honestly, the pattern suggests that many respondents found hiring hard. It does not say how many seats are open on a given course, or how many weekly hours those seats represent.

Why hiring sets the mowing ceiling

A fairway program is a schedule with people in it. A robot pass or a riding mower pass still needs someone to start it, check it, clear it and reroute when play changes. When that seat is empty, the schedule shrinks before any machine enters the picture.

This is an inference from how mowing programs run, not a finding from the survey. Sentiment does not measure vacancies, but a board can measure its own vacancies and hours against the calendar the course actually keeps.

The practical ceiling is simple. A course can carry only as much fairway mowing as its filled seats can run, plus any automation it has in place. Planning from the seat count, not from a labor headline, keeps the schedule honest.

Questions to ask before approving a labor plan

A labor headline becomes useful only when it turns into questions the course can answer. These five do that.

• Which survey and year does each labor figure come from, and has someone opened the original report?
• How many seat hours does fairway mowing need in peak weeks, and how many of those hours are staffed today?
• Which holes, passes or rough areas drop from the schedule when one operator is out for two weeks?
• Which tasks can a robot pass hold while the crew is short, and which still need a person on site?
• What must a site assessment measure before anyone discusses a lease quote?

Where a robot lease fits the staffing math

Service Robot Co. is an OEM neutral robot integrator, found at servicerobotco.com. We lease robots through financing on a three year lease, with one fixed lease payment quoted after a site assessment. That assessment maps the turf, the paths and the no go areas before any number is discussed.

We pick equipment across manufacturers, deploy and integrate it, train staff, and service every unit under RoboCare, backed by regional service engineers in every state we service. A lease can cover the passes a short crew cannot reach. It does not replace the superintendent's judgment on greens, and it does not remove the need for a filled seat.

What to verify before the next labor discussion

Three checks come before any budget line changes. Open the original GCSAA report to confirm the year behind the 63 percent reading. Open the USGA Green Section page surfaced under the title Dealing With A Weak Labor Market, because the survey percentages in our notes did not come from it. Then run the seat count.

A board that waits for those checks will argue from its own timecards, which is where the decision belongs anyway.