A Typical Day

"Adam, how many staff do you guys have in your department?" A member asked me this question on the putting green last week.
"Currently, including Hugh and myself our staff totals 18." I replied.
"What do we do with all those people on a typical day?"

I began to explain what each person does and how we divide the labour, but I think the explanation might have been lacking due to the immensity of the question.  I put together the following to help define my answer better.

There are many facets to maintaining a golf course and much of the staff are crossed trained to meet the varying demands.  Depending on the type of tee start, whether it a shotgun, crossover or regular tee play, we have to adjust how our resources are applied.  In addition to the type of tee start the other major factor is what we are cutting that day.  We refer to Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays as "cut days" as more of our staff is involved in cutting fairways, tees, collars and approaches on those days.  Tuesdays and Thursdays, we apply more resources to things like line trimming and divot repair. There are jobs like hole movement, tee rounds, rough mowing and greens mowing which are done 7 days a week, each month, for the entirety of the summer (the only exception being rain events or cultural practices).  To define a typical day is difficult because of the shifting dynamics of the occupation.  The division of labour is based on event planning, weather, cultural practices, equipment maintenance, disease pressure, irrigation needs, fertilizer requirements, staff availability, special projects and anything else that can pop up.  It's part of the reason why I love this job, there really isn't a typical day. 

Having said that, this is what took place on the morning of July the 22nd, and is a fair representation of a typical day. 

Nathan Garden mowing greens with the 3150.  Most days we mow the greens with this triplex.  We have two of these machines which allows us the flexibility to single cut or double cut.  The machines also have roller heads that replace the cutting units.  The greens are approx. 160,000 square feet and the job takes about 4 hours to complete with one operator, with two operators roughly half of that time.

Derrek Tully mowing tees with the Toro 1000. 

Dustin Robinson also mowing tees.  Getting all the tees cut on a straight tee time day requires two members of our staff.  The tees are about 90,000 square feet and the job takes approx. 3 hours with two operators, not including cleaning the equipment and service. 

Justin Tomas and Tony Dickie raking traps.  Justin is raking the interior of the bunker with the John Deere trap rake and Tony is raking the edges.  Not all of the traps are raked with the machine due to the size and must be raked entirely by hand.  With two operators the job takes about three hours.  The trap team is also responsible for removing debris from the traps, picking stones and removing weeds. Normally Justin is our greens surround mower with the Toro reelmaster.  It takes Justin about a day and half to mow all the surrounds and when caught up he helps on tasks like raking traps.  Tony is our spray tech.  On the days when not applying fertilizer, pesticides or wetting agents Tony helps with the daily tasks.

David Eye mowing fairways with the 5410 fairway unit.

Barb Stone mowing fairways with the 5410 fairway unit.   The fairways are roughly 1,000,000 square feet and with two operators mowing takes about four and half hours. The Fairways are for the most part mowed on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

Gord Parker and the Toro Rough unit.  There are about 80 acres of rough for Gordy to mow each week.  Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays Gord mows the perimeters of the fairways, three to four laps around each fairway.  That takes him about 5 hours for each of those days.  During the rest of the time, and on Tuesday and Thursdays he mows the what we call side lines, or extreme out side rough.

Mike Connell mows with the Sidewinder mower around the tees and helps Gord with some of the sidelines. To cut all the tee surrounds takes about a day and half, and the rough about the same. 

Kyle Macdonald watering.  Kyle is responsible for repairing, maintaining and using the irrigation system.  This includes hose watering the hot spots on the course, running the portions of the irrigation system not automatically controlled and managing the electrical system that powers the sprinkler heads.

Brian Jones mowing collars and approaches.

Alex Arsenault mowing collars and approaches.  With two operators this job takes about 2 hours, four with one operator. The collars and approaches are mowed with the fairways on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

Dean Macdougall working through the tee rounds. The rounds person is responsible for moving the tee block daily, refilling the divot pails, picking up the broken tees, repairing the divots on the tees, collecting the garbage, checking the ball washers, cleaning and restocking the washroom on 12 and drying off the benches. The tee rounds are done every day during the peak season, with the exception of rain days or cultural events.  Normally this is Phil Wentworth's task, but today Phil is helping Stewart King with cleaning up the rain shelters.

Gavin Tumblin moving the holes.  The hole changer is also responsible for cleaning and restocking the washroom on five, straightening the stakes around the course, painting the edges of the holes, repairing any damage to the greens and of course changing the holes daily.  This job takes bout 2 and a half  hours.  Both tee rounds and moving holes are scheduled patterns, which I'll explain later.

Phil Woodworth helping with the gardening.

Stewart King maintaining the rain shelter on 18.  Stewart is responsible for all the gardens on the golf course and around the club house. 

Last but not least is Miles Bishop who maintains all of the mowing equipment and monitors the domestic water supply.  Miles spends his time checking the mowers for consistency and repairs all equipment when necessary.  This is one of the most important jobs on the golf course as the reliability of the equipment is key to operation standards. 

Again, the above schedule will change depending on the type of tee start for that day.  Crossovers require two teams on each nine while shotgun starts require more staff on each task to have it completed prior to the commencement of play. 

Most of the morning jobs take between two and four hours.  After completing their morning jobs the staff is reassigned to one of the other many jobs that we do during during the course of a day.  The jobs range from filling water coolers, line trimming, repairing bunkers, mowing the clubhouse, trimming yard markers and brass plates, fairway divots, painting, building maintenance, goose dropping removal and any thing else that requires our attention.  Hopefully this provides some insight into our labour division and daily practices.

Our Fairway divot bottle program is in full swing and we would like to express our thanks to the members for their effort.  To date the divot bottle program has delivered approximately 12,750 lbs. of divot mix to the fairways.  This is helping tremendously with recovery from play on the fairways!  Thanks for the help!!