A Look at Golf Course Maintenance during COVID-19

New Jersey golf course superintendents are currently being asked to do a lot with a little.

The COVID-19 crisis has resulted in an across-the-board closure of both public and private courses throughout the state, yet the superintendents are being asked to maintain the grounds in near-optimum conditions – and in nearly every case, with a severely limited staff.

Because courses are shuttered, most part-time employees have been laid off, leading to only a handful of full-time employees to maintain courses. Often, this means as few as two or three personnel on hand to maintain a lot of acreage.

In some cases, pro shop personnel have been asked to help the maintenance staff, acting as mowers and gardeners.

“Most clubs in the state that I know of are backing off. Here, we are a skeleton crew. We’re better off than some and worse than some others,” said Chris Carson, long-time superintendent at Echo Lake Country Club in Westfield whose grounds department has been reduced from 20 to four, including Carson himself.

“Because there’s no end to this, clubs are doing the bare minimum and preserving as much of their operating budgets so they can live for another day.”

At Echo Lake, it means keeping the greens in good shape with cuttings almost every day, while not much attention is being paid to bunkers.

Said Carson: “There’s going to be a learning curve with superintendents about how far they can push their golf course.  How to ramp up quickly could be a learning experience. We might be changing the way we operate. Maybe things will be about needs and not wants.

“We spend twice as much money on bunkers than we do on greens. If you go back 100 years, those people would think of us today as crazy for doing that. I’m wondering if this is an opportunity for golf to take a good hard look at what we are doing with bunkers going forward.”

At this time of year superintendents are aerifying courses. Carson is doing it differently, punching holes into greens and fairways to allow growth instead of drilling core holes. There’s just not enough staff to do it that way.

Andrew Hojnowski, the manager of golf maintenance at Neshanic Valley, echoed Carson’s remarks.

“Aeration is our main focus since we do not have enough staff at this time for any projects. After we are done with aeration, I will be focusing on mowing and spraying to keep the place alive and well – with as little labor as possible,” Hojnowski said.

Jonathan Heywood, superintendent at Morris County Golf Club, said his staff is down 40 percent for this time of year, making even routine tasks more difficult. 

“We are relying more on larger ride-on mowers than ever before.  We will be applying more growth regulators as the grass wakes up to minimize hours spent mowing. The long-term concern is being able to provide the consistent quality playing conditions that our membership has become accustomed to with less staff and less chemical and fertilizer inputs,” Heywood said.

Superintendents throughout the state are relying on each other and various affiliated organizations to come up with ideas for best practices. On Friday, April 3, the Golf Course Superintendents Association of New Jersey (GCSANJ) put together a one-hour webinar for supers entitled “Turf Management During COVID-19. Keeping Your Maintenance Program Simple When Things Are Not.”

The webinar included a discussion with Rutgers Turfgrass Specialists; Dr. Bruce Clarke, Dr. James Murphy, Dr. Matthew Elmore, and Dr. Albrecht Koppenhofer. A video included best practices and strategies to manage courses with minimal labor, reduced budgets, and without play. It can be viewed by clicking here.

“As an association, we feel it is our job and our duty to be a resource for our members. We want to create enough avenues for them to get information in a timely way. That was the driving force for us to create the webinar with the Rutgers Turfgrass Specialists. Their advice is incredibly helpful at a time like this,” said Maureen Sharples, GCSANJ executive director. “This crisis is not just causing a labor issue, it’s a budget issue as well. Everybody is trying to save money.”

A strong advocate for GCSANJ is the New Jersey Green Industry Council.

“They are our voice in Trenton and were instrumental in ensuring that the superintendents can maintain golf courses as essential employees,” Sharples said.  “They are communicating with the Governor’s Office, relaying information back and letting us know the up-to-date details on regulations and executive orders.”

Other issues concerning superintendents are those of sanitation and hygiene.

“Day-to-day, my concerns are the well-being of my family, and then my staff. We’re making sure we are all doing our part to social distance at the club and away from work.  We are cleaning up after ourselves and sanitizing diligently all over the facility – carts, tools, things we touch,” said Jonathan Heywood of Morris County.

“We are preparing for the season with our usual vital practices, core aeration of playing surfaces and we are applying season start-up key sprays for weeds and diseases.” Heywood feels Morris County can get up and running for play within a week, as the playing surfaces are mowed consistently.

In order to gain greater understanding of operations at each course, Ridgewood’s Todd Raisch conducted a survey among GCSANJ membership and received 72 responses. He found that that respondents noted that 98.6 percent of courses are being maintained; that 62.5 percent of staff are working fewer hours; that vendors for equipment, insecticides, fertilizers, etc., are allowed on site at 65 percent of the courses; that contractors are allowed on site at 84.7 percent of courses, and that 94.4 percent of courses have enough disinfecting supplies on hand.

Ridgewood laid off 15 part-time employees, who Raisch feels will be ready to come back to work when the time is appropriate. Raisch, in his 26th year at the club, currently has a staff of 13 plus three full-timers from the golf staff. “To be open in a week, we would need the 15 other people. We are spreading our sprays out now and doing great. For safety, everyone is assigned their own equipment and vehicle – and no one is allowed in our employee building.”        

Jersey City’s Skyway Golf Course is a nine-hole venue that is maintained in pristine conditions. That attention to detail leads superintendent Mike Tardogno to have serious concerns about the future of some courses in New Jersey.

“Where will funding for agricultural supplies and payroll come from as courses remain closed longer and longer? Not just for my course, but what impact will this have on the industry as a whole? Golf has never completely recovered from the 2008 crash. This could be a devastating blow just over a decade later. This will be felt from course closures and vendor closures, to impacts on universities seeing a reduction of students going into the golf and turf fields and a yet again reduced talent pool in the industry,” Tardogno noted.