Editor’s notebook: Let’s chat about AI

A late 2024 visit to the Heartland revealed how it’s becoming acceptable to openly discuss using artificial intelligence to make technical and non-technical parts of the job less cumbersome for golf course superintendents and their teams.   

The Nebraska GCSA conducted its 2024 turf symposium at Country Club of Lincoln, a venerable club three miles from the towering limestone state capitol building and four miles from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln campus. Lincoln attracts an abundance of brainpower, and forward-thinking ideas permeated the symposium. Consider it a fitting location for an AI discussion.

Following director of agronomy Michael Sheely’s presentation describing the gritty construction and grow in of GrayBull, a new destination private club in the Nebraska Sandhills, an upbeat employee at a full-service private club in Omaha indicated the future has arrived in his work life. Ben Lorenzen is the creative director at Champions Run. He oversees the club’s web and digital efforts. He doubles as Champions Run’s director of aquatics and fitness.

Lorenzen simply called his presentation “Artificial Intelligence.” The session marked the first time numerous professionals filling the Country Club of Lincoln ballroom witnessed a formal topic on the subject at an industry conference.

Using a booming voice (think wedding DJ!) and relinquishing some of his time so the room could hear the full version of Sheely’s story, Lorenzen spent 20 minutes introducing how AI can boost golf course maintenance and facility operations. A compact presentation on AI proved fitting, because the technology, after all, is being developed to help organizations trim the time and effort required to complete monotonous tasks.

“AI is not a replacement for us,” Lorenzen emphasized at the start of his presentation. “It’s a tool meant to make our lives easier.”

From a show-and-tell of ChatGPT’s functionality to displaying a slide of industry companies offering AI-driven platforms, Lorenzen exuded confidence about AI’s potential to assist superintendents with time-consuming office and administrative duties, including drafting daily schedules based on employee availability, communicating messages to customers and analyzing budgets. He sternly stressed how AI can help industry professionals navigate tasks they loathe.

American businesses remain lukewarm on integrating AI into operations. Only 5.4 percent of American firms are using AI, according to a Census Bureau report. The usage rate was less than 2 percent in the agriculture and construction sectors. Golf is traditionally a reactive and conservative industry. Slow adopters to emerging technology — especially one like generative AI that has sparked some controversial headlines — proliferate golf facilities and associations. In fact, 18 percent of respondents in Golf Course Industry’s 2025 Number to Know survey believe no parts of the job will be handled by AI in 2035.

Still, the melding of AI and golf course maintenance should accelerate in 2025. Human resources and management guru Jodie Cunningham of Optimus Talent Partners was the leadoff hitter on the second day of the Nebraska GCSA symposium, and somebody in the crowd asked her how AI can help golf facilities recruit employees. She mentioned that AI can assist in three recruitment areas:

• Job posting text
• Image generation
• Drafting interview questions

OK, I was the somebody in the crowd who asked the question. On the symposium’s first day, I led a presentation titled, “Yes, you’re a communicator!” and recommended attendees who detest writing and email creation to experiment with ChatGPT. I then warned the room that ChatGPT and other AI functions require rigorous oversight. Going directly from ChatGPT to email send or on-course application is perilous. The unmatched blend of technical expertise and education makes superintendents and equipment managers the most valuable employees in golf. They must thoroughly review everything their departments implement or communicate.  

AI discussions at industry events and among peer networks will become more common in 2025. Golf maintenance professionals remain overworked and underfunded despite the post-pandemic golf surge. Any platform with potential to help reallocate time and resources to meaningful, strategic work via identifying operational efficiencies should be strongly considered and thoroughly vetted. 

Adoption rates for integrating AI into golf operations will likely be slow, because of the industry’s resist-before-evolve mentality. But golf can benefit by closely studying other industries’ AI triumphs and flubs.

Failing to promote discussions about tools that are capable of assisting golf professionals and their facilities handle generational and rapid change is industry malpractice. Fortunately, organizations like the Nebraska GCSA are adding tech-minded topics to conference agendas.

In the periphery of the same elegant ballroom where Lorenzen stimulated open-minded industry professionals, vendors showcased their products. An entire autonomous mowing unit sat atop one 4-foot table.

How many labor hours can that mower reallocate to other tasks? And when will operators receive a return on the autonomous investment? A few keystrokes might be capable of answering that question sooner than the industry realizes.

Guy Cipriano is Golf Course Industry’s publisher + editor-in-chief.