Does any of it make sense?

Despite veiled attempts to write off into the sunset, I’m back at the keyboard and on the back page for 2024. Wow, is it really 2024? Seems like 2020 was — and still is — yesterday. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m finding my sense of time and space has been permanently altered by the global events formerly known as the pandemic.

Seems when I scroll through my phone to share that photo I took last month, I’m surprised to learn I captured the image in 2015! Will this phenomenon ever self-correct? Or is this the new normal? I guess time will tell.

Speaking of time, it’s customary this time of year for folks to look ahead and predict what the year may hold in store. But I want to look ahead by first looking back. Do you remember when the previously unknown folk singer Oliver Anthony became an overnight sensation last summer with his song “Rich Men North of Richmond?”

His song became an anthem for a lot of hard-working individuals — you know, the type that makes up a large majority of our maintenance teams. Guys and gals who rise early, lace up their boots, and pour out their sweat in the midday sun working hard all day to keep turfgrass alive. All for a paycheck to make ends meet.

In the song, Anthony bellows, “I’ve been sellin’ my soul, workin’ all day. Overtime hours for bull---t pay.” And this gem, “Cause your dollar ain’t sh-t and it’s taxed to no end. Cause of rich men north of Richmond.”

Now, even if you never studied United States geography, I am certain you understand the premise of the song is directed to our esteemed lawmakers in Washington, D.C. But after that you are probably wondering how those lyrics could possibly relate to the golf course industry.

It’s only in recent years that wages have finally started to grow for assistants and equipment managers. And deservedly so. These are the folks who truly were working overtime hours for bull---t pay. And the labor shortage created by the pandemic forced employers to raise hourly wages to more than double the federal minimum wage (again, long overdue) for entry-level employees.

This, in turn, forced employers to raise longer-tenured employees’ salaries and wages because nobody who has put in 10 or more years wants to earn the same hourly pay as the new person who started last week standing in the corner of the breakroom.

So where does all this new money leave us? Well, if you’ve checked out from a grocery store lately, not in your pocket (see above: dollar ain’t sh--t). Golf course maintenance budgets are on the rise, and labor is really on the rise.

I spoke with a colleague who told me their budget was going to be $2.8 million for 2024 — and $1.8 million was labor!

But is this sustainable? I was talking with a member of our club last month about the impact inflation is having on our industry. Budgets have increased to levels many of us never thought possible decades ago, and others have increased to levels only once reserved for the high-end courses.

But the reality is that today’s dollar doesn’t buy you what yesterday’s did. Despite strutting around because you manage a golf course with a $2 million dollar budget, ask this question: Is the golf course really any better than it was when the budget was half that way back when?

I’m curious about the financial sustainability of this current path. The pandemic brought players back to the game and the boost it injected into the industry was much needed. But golf always has been — and will continue to be — a recreation based on disposable income.

When dues need to be increased to pay inflated wages and purchase fertilizer and plant protectants just to maintain the status quo, are folks going to sign the checks when they don’t receive anything above and beyond in return?

There’s something more nefarious at play in my opinion with the world as a whole and, honestly, I don’t know how much longer everything will stay the way we remember it. Until then, all I know to do is make the golf course as good as we possibly can on any given day until we are told not to.

It’s hard being an old soul in the new world.