Survival guide to maintaining a golf course without an assistant

I think it was around three months after my assistant gave his notice in August 2023 that it first dawned on me something may be “up” in our industry with hiring assistants. As the end of the year approached, I hadn’t received a single response to either our national or regional ad.

I chalked it up initially to timing. Most would-be applicants were probably waiting for the end of the “golf season” before embarking on a life-changing career move. Made sense. Most assistants aren’t quitting mid-season and changing industries like ours did. The labor pool surely had to be there like always, but those in it just weren’t ready yet. I figured résumés would begin pouring in during winter, probably after the holidays.

But that “pouring in” never happened. I had a few bites, and I interviewed a few candidates. I even ended up hiring one of them. But, alas, our assistant search did not end there. The fellow I hired lasted only about a month before giving notice, telling me he had secured a superintendent job in another part of the country.

I refreshed both ads but had little confidence the search would end with an assistant in hand. I was right. I didn’t receive a single response to either ad after my ill-fated hire.

What was “up?”

The salary and benefit package we were offering seemed competitive when I compared it to other assistant openings across the country. Our golf course here in western Washington is a well-regarded 27-hole club thriving in the new golf boom. Add to that, I’m also only about seven or eight years from retirement. For a dedicated hard worker with a little patience, the assistant position could very possibly morph into the head job not that far down the road.

Talking with other superintendents, both in my region and across the country, I realized I wasn’t alone in this situation.

Word came to me from near and far that assistant positions were becoming increasingly difficult to fill. Some, like mine, were seemingly impossible to fill.

I had an enlightening conversation with a local superintendent I respect immensely, and he informed me he had been looking for an assistant going on three years now. He still has not filled it. I should point out that he did tell me he could have filled the position, but just hadn’t felt the right person had come through the door, and thus decided to look at his operation a bit differently.

Shortly after this conversation, I filled another open position that I’d been struggling to fill: irrigation technician.

After I hired this very experienced, hard-working irrigation tech in August (actually paying him a competitive wage for the position), ending a multi-year search trying to fill this position with someone who was not only competent but also not afraid of actual work, I woke up at 2 in the morning with an epiphany: What if I looked at this differently? What if this wasn’t so much a case of how do I find a good assistant, but more of an opportunity to rewrite the playbook? To look outside the box?

What if — drumroll please — I didn’t hire an assistant? How could that possibly look?

This was an opportunity, I suddenly realized lying in bed that night, to take back a little control. To make this actually work for me. That was the night the idea of restructuring the entire organizational tree occurred to me.

But before I talk about my restructuring plan, let’s take a quick look at how we got here.

Perhaps the main reason we, as an industry, find ourselves in this predicament is because we haven’t kept up with the Joneses. The Joneses are basically every other industry. Golf course maintenance has always been an attractive career choice for certain people, like me, who love the game, love working outside, and love the chance to help mold and shape a property to show off while utilizing the land we’ve been put in charge of. But somewhere along the way this industry fell behind with wages. And I’m not just talking about assistant superintendent wages here. I’m talking about the entire operation. Superintendents, assistants, techs, and full-time and seasonal crew members.

And with that “falling behind,” those young people who love the game and love working outside and want to be on a golf course suddenly found that despite that pull they may have felt toward the game and working on a course, they could make more money in almost any other field. Why go to school to pursue a field that ultimately will not pay as well as other careers?

In Washington, we have the highest minimum wage of any state in the country. In 2024, it was $16.28 an hour, and in 2025 it will jump once again to $16.66. I’m all for people making more money, but for smaller, family-owned businesses in this state, it has been nothing shy of devastating. For our maintenance budgets over the last several years, the minimum wage hikes mean a struggle to pay long-timers a wage they deserve.

My problem of not being able to find an irrigation tech who stuck around longer than a few months was in direct correlation to not being able to pay a wage deserved for this position. An irrigation tech executes hard work, especially on a 27-hole golf course with a 30-plus-year-old irrigation system.

Irrigation techs, spray techs, equipment techs and longtime crew members — keeping these wages properly “gapped” from the minimum wage and what we’re paying high school kids with no work experience who we hire to fill out our seasonal positions has been challenging. In fact, because other industries can pay summer workers above minimum wage to start, I’ve had to do that as well, which further challenges us to pay a proper wage to our long-time employees. Keeping that “gap” where it should be becomes nearly impossible. When the fast-food joint or the superstore down the street can offer $21 or $22 an hour to workers with no experience, how does a family-owned business struggling to stay afloat compete with that?

So, let’s get to my restructuring epiphany. What if, I thought, I took the money we were offering for the open assistant position and instead paid techs and long-timers a more competitive wage, as well as created some new positions to share duties commonly held by a traditional assistant superintendent?

I sat down at the computer and started to see if I could make it all work. The first step was the new position, which I call a lead.

I identified three people on the crew who might not have been assistant candidates but were definitely people who could fit into this leadership role. I needed to utilize their strengths and find areas for each of them to help me. Without an assistant, I’ve been a bit overwhelmed for more than a year. Having three people to take some of that pressure off me would not only be beneficial but actually pivotal to my physical and mental well-being.

Getting these three individuals more money and more responsibility would keep them here long-term. They want to be here and want to contribute. It’s just a matter of paying them a wage they deserved for what they have provided in the past and will continue to provide me and the operation going forward in their new roles.

One of the leads would be responsible for training new employees and act as a welcoming liaison to new hires. His strength also lies in cup cutting and tee setup, so he would oversee these areas. Another lead is strong in bunker maintenance, topdressing, hand watering and irrigation. The third is strong in all aspects of mowing, spraying, tree maintenance and landscaping.

One of our leads is also someone who, although in his 40s, seems a natural leader — he has managerial experience — and has expressed an interest in pursuing golf course management as a career. I got the OK from our owner to tell him we’d pay for his online education in securing a degree in golf course and turfgrass management.

Our owner does have a legitimate concern: without an assistant, I’m the only eyes on the property with any knowledge of certain areas that an educated assistant could spot and share. My ability to train this lead — in addition to his education — would be an important cog in this plan working without a traditionally educated, experienced assistant.

The next step in my restructuring would be simply paying all the techs a wage they should be making. That means obliterating that minimum wage gap so it would no longer be an issue. This started with hiring the irrigation tech at a proper wage this past summer. I have worked out a plan to get the equipment tech, the spray tech and the landscape tech up to the same ballpark wage.

Another part of my restructuring involved creating the new position of shop manager. It’s different than a traditional equipment tech position, because the shop manager would work on the course in the morning and then be in the shop each afternoon, either assisting the equipment tech or actually assisting me with facility matters that regularly emerge. We’ve employed the shop manager for a few months, and he’s been invaluable to our team. The facility has never looked so good.

There are definite drawbacks to not having that traditional assistant, including me taking a week off in the summer and not worrying about the place falling apart and actually enjoying my time off perhaps being at the top of the list. But this is where a little faith comes in.

I admit, I’m a micromanager. This, I realize, must change. Micromanaging will not work with this restructuring plan. Letting go, trusting and, well, enjoying a little more time off are important facets to the new plan.

To be completely honest, this restructuring plan isn’t exactly going to fit into the 2025 budget. Although not hiring an assistant has provided more money to go around, it was not enough to fully implement this plan. That’s where the owner came in. Ownership understanding that we must look at things differently is key. We can’t keep paying below competitive wages to long-term, loyal individuals who love this golf course and want to stay here. We need to show them how important they are, not push them away.

Not being able to hire an assistant should not be a dire situation. Instead, why not consider it a chance to reinvent the wheel.

Ron Furlong is the superintendent at Avalon Golf Club in Burlington, Washington, and a frequent Golf Course Industry contributor.