Numbers game

These days golf course agronomy is more about economy than science.

For superintendents across the country, that assessment by Jeff Spangler, Troon Golf senior vice president for science and agronomy, never rings more true than this time of year, when most superintendents are submitting their proposed budgets for next year.

As a rule, few golf course department managers are caught in a tighter squeeze between performance expectations and the budget to meet those goals than superintendents. The work of superintendents and their crews is on display every playable day, and club members or paying public customers have certain course conditioning and preparation expectations that may be all but impossible to achieve if there is insufficient money budgeted for them.

Superintendents in the Snow Belt areas of the country in particular may be struggling with next year's budgets. Superintendents whose courses were hard hit by last year’s brutal winter may have learned some hard lessons about areas of the budget that will need to be increased in the coming year to deal with the potential consequences of another harsh winter, such as labor and equipment for snow and ice removal, additional sod to replace any turf lost due to weather, enhanced fertilization and disease prevention, etc.

ASPIRE Golf Consulting Principal Tim Moraghan urges superintendents to learn from the recent past and adjust both their operational plans and the budgets to pay for them accordingly.

Moraghan suggests superintendents ask themselves: What did I learn from last winter or this past summer?

 “If I’m in New England, what if I get another 100-inch snow this year?” he says. “What was the take-home message for me after last year?” Ideally, (next year's) budget will have room to add some contingency funds to cover extreme weather events. If those funds end up being unnecessary, they can either be applied to other areas where there may be a shortfall, or simply remain unspent, which hopefully will earn the superintendent an “attaboy” from the club’s financial overseers rather than news that those funds will be eliminated from the next year’s budget.

Some superintendents use the zero-based budget system, essentially creating new budget line items and amounts each year, while others prefer to use the previous year’s budget as a template and adjust the various line items either up or down based on historical trends, new developments such as price increases, replacement costs or anticipated new capital expenditures for various projects at the course or club.

“We have some benchmarking guidelines based on the quality of conditioning we expect and the location of our various facilities,” Spangler says. “Internally, we look at ‘like’ facilities. There are also some general guidelines that the GCSAA puts out, I believe.”

This is the time of the year for superintendents to do their research for their budget,  Spangler says. “We don’t think that the concept of relying on last year’s budget is necessarily good, so we ask our superintendents to use the zero-based budget approach,” he says. “We want them to rebuild their model according to their agronomic plan for the coming year. Most experienced superintendents have a pretty good idea what they plan to do on the golf course in the next year. They should write that out in the winter and plan out the entire year. It can actually be much more formalized than most people think.”

Many superintendents, particularly those at established and traditional private clubs, prefer to rely on the many years of accumulated trends and data to build the following year’s budget.

Chris Frielinghaus, superintendent of grounds at the 100-year old Glens Falls Country Club in Queensbury, N.Y., doesn’t use the zero-based budget approach because he doesn’t see the crazy fluctuations from year to year.

“I take current expenditures, project those out to year-end, see what line items are over and then make adjustments [for next year],” he says. “Do I need more people, or to give raises? What are my costs going to be for other expenses like security, trash cleanup, irrigation of the grounds, all those things? Are there any capital items I need to include? Then, in my case, that budget goes through a couple of committees and then to the board of governors.”

Labor can be difficult to budget for, but is critical to most superintendents’ budgets.

If possible, superintendents should analyze the ebb and flow of work patterns throughout the year and adjust staffing levels accordingly. It can be difficult to keep good, qualified workers if their employment fluctuates too much, but few things can ruin a maintenance budget faster than a full maintenance crew on the clock with very little to do.

“The first step is to analyze your payroll/labor requirements and provide for some seasonal flex where it’s appropriate,” Spangler says. “For instance, this time of year you’d downsize in New England and gear up in the Southwest. Staffing sheets are a real issue because they’re such a big percentage of golf course budgets.”

Jim Dunlap is a freelance writer based in Encinitas, Calif., and is a frequent GCI contributor.