CAREERS IN PROFESSIONAL GOLF In sti tute Re search Num ber 46 ISBN 1-58511-046-9 DOT Num ber 153.341-010 O*Net SOC Code 27-2021.00 CAREERS IN PROFESSIONAL GOLF TOURNAMENT PLAYER CLUB/COURSE GOLF PRO AT THIS STAGE IN YOUR LIFE YOU MAY FIND THAT THERE IS NO SHORT AGE OF peo ple around who will gladly give you ad vice on find ing your way in the world of work. Some of them will have cau tion ary tales to tell and will give you tips on how to avoid mak ing the mis takes they made. Oth ers will have wor thy con nec tions you can use. A sur pris ing num ber will just want to hear them selves talk. Lis ten to all of them. Many adults don’t know as much as they 2 think they do, but they prob a bly know more than you. Keep that in mind when you’re sit ting through your ump teenth long-winded lec ture on how to get a job. Some peo ple get lucky when it co mes to choos ing a ca reer. They have a tal ent that can’t be ig nored, that they’ve turned into a skill that they know they’ll use for ever. Art ists and ath letes tend to fall into this cat e gory. They spend their child hood de vel op ing their tal ent and try to earn a liv ing at it as young adults. Ath letes are es pe cially prone to this ca reer path be cause their tal ents may peak when they are rel a tively young, forc ing them to re tire and seek out sec ond ca reers by their 30s rather than pur su ing one ca reer un til their 60s. Some pro fes sional ath letes make mil lions of dol lars in their youth, but that money may have to last for the rest of their lives. Golf is one sport which is an ex cep tion to the rule. Pro fes sional golf ers rou tinely play in big-time tour na ments un til well into their 70s. Golf is a game that en hances phys i cal fit ness, but does not re quire the kind of hy per-fit ness of, for ex am ple, foot ball, a sport in which great strength is an ob vi ous as set. If you set your sights on a ca reer in golf now, you could have many de cades of en joy ment ahead of you. If golf sounds like a pretty good way to make a liv ing, then there’s no time to waste. About 37 mil lion Amer i cans play golf or visit a driv ing range at least once a year. To gether, they spend $25 bil lion on golf equip ment, in struc tion and green fees at the na tion’s 16,000 golf courses and driv ing ranges, known to gether as golf fa cil i ties. That’s a very large busi ness, and one that needs a con stant flow of golf pro fes sion als not just to play in tour na ments, but to man age golf fa cil i ties, teach golf les sons, de sign golf courses and sell golf equip ment. De mand for golf pro fes sion als, gen er ally known sim ply as golf pros, typ i cally out strips sup ply, mak ing em ploy ment pros pects very good for en thu si as tic ca reer ists like you. The busi ness is very com pet i tive, how ever. If this is the path you choose to take, be pre pared for some very tough days. But never for get that you’ll be get ting paid to do some thing that many peo ple would gladly do for free. If you like what you read in this re port, keep go ing. Check out pub li ca tions and pro fes sional as so ci a tions; they’ll be happy to lend a hand to an up-and-com ing golfer who wants to en ter their ranks. You are set ting your sights on a very com pet i tive ca reer. You can never know too much. 3 WHAT YOU CAN DO NOW IF YOU DID N’T AL READY PLAY GOLF, YOU PROB A BLY WOULD N’T HAVE PICKED UP this re port. Keep play ing! If you want to be a pro, you better be good. Play on as many dif fer ent courses as you can and stay on top of the golf in dus try by read ing the many mag a zines and news let ters that cover it. The most im por tant thing you can be do ing right now to en hance your ca reer pros pects as a golf pro is to play golf. Se ri ous pro fes sion als play five or six days a week, es pe cially in their youth when they’re per fect ing their game and try ing to be come good enough to get paid to do it, rather than pay some body else for the priv i lege. This can be an ex pen sive and time-con sum ing prop o si tion, but it stands to rea son that if you want to be a golf pro, the first thing you should do is be come a better golfer than most other peo ple. Less than one per cent of all golf ers rou tinely shoot in the 70s, and you’ll have to be one of them to get ahead in the golf busi ness. You can cut your costs by play ing at a pub lic course. Many pub lic courses have mem ber ship pro grams that al low mem bers to play un lim ited rounds for a set fee and even to store their clubs in the club house. Even though play ing at one course reg u larly is the best way to keep your costs down, take ad van tage of the op por tu nity to play at dif fer ent courses as of ten as you can. If you play five days a week, play four rounds at your usual course and the fifth at a dif fer ent one. Be pre pared to drive an hour or two to get to the most in ter est ing courses. By play ing dif fer ent courses you’ll be con fronted with dif fer ent sit u a tions – dif fer ent kinds of turf, wa ter and sand haz ards and fair ways with dif fer ent widths and dog legs. The ex pe ri ence will better pre pare you to play, and play well, any where your ca reer may take you. You’ll also ap pre ci ate the change of scen ery. Go to a good book store and buy a stack of golf mag a zines. There’s no short age of them: Golf, Golf Di gest, Golf Tips, Golfer and Golfweek are all readily avail able, as are many oth ers. Sub scribe to a few and read them re li giously. Read ing trade pe ri od i cals is the eas i est, fast est way to gain an un der stand ing of any pro fes sion. 4 HISTORY OF THE CAREER GOLF HAS A LONG AND IL LUS TRI OUS HIS TORY AND MAY HAVE BEEN IN SPIRED, AT least in part, by var i ous stick-and-ball games played by the Romans thou sands of years ago in the far thest reaches of their em pire. Some of these games more closely re sem bled hockey than golf, and were about us ing sticks to pass a ball through a large goal. What makes golf unique among ball sports is its use of the small hole, or cup, as the tar get. When you think about it, hockey, soc cer, foot ball and golf all aim to put a ball, or puck, into a spe cific place, but golf’s tar get is by far the small est. Golf is also the only one of these ball games that is gen er ally played as an in di vid ual sport. Golf as we know it first ap peared in Scot land in the 15th cen tury. Known var i ously as “gowf” or “goff,” the game re quired play ers to use sticks to hit balls into far away holes. The first balls were made of leather and were stuffed with feath ers. The ear li est clubs were some times carved from a sin gle piece of wood, and most play ers used the same club for ev ery shot in the game. Cre ating clubs of dif fer ent lengths with faces of dif fer ent an gles was an idea that came on slowly and has con tin ued to evolve right up to the pres ent day. Your clubs look very dif fer ent from those pro duced only a few de cades ago, and the clubs made hun dreds of years ago are al most un rec og niz able to day. Golf be came so pop u lar in Scot land that in 1457 King James II banned it, along with soc cer, be cause it dis tracted men from ar chery prac tice, which was not only a sport, but a mil i tary ne ces sity. Al though it was widely ig nored, the ban stayed in ef fect un til 1502 when King James IV took up the game him self. He was not the first per son of great rank and priv i lege to take a lik ing to golf. The game has al ways been as so ci ated with wealth. This may be be cause it re quires so much open land. His torically speak ing, only aris to crats were al lowed to own land, at least large tracts of it, and, like most peo ple, they tended to do things they could do on their prop erty with their friends. The same is true of fox hunt ing and horse rac ing, both of which re quire great spaces. This is also why pri vate golf clubs still make up about a quar ter of all golf fa cil i ties. 5 Golf is first men tioned in the his tory of St. An drews, Scot land in 1552 in ref er ence to a course op er ated by a lo cal re li gious or der. Pub lic play ers were al lowed onto the course in 1553. The first golf club as we know it to day was founded in Leith, Scot land in 1744. Known as the Gen tle men Golfers of Leith, the club is re mem bered to day for de vis ing the first com pre hen sive set of rules of golf, writ ten by mem ber Duncan Forbes. The rules are sim ple and eas ily rec og niz able as the foun da tion of to day’s game. They are also widely pub lished on the Internet. Look them up some day and take a glimpse into the past. St. An drews took its per ma nent place in the his tory of golf in 1754. Founded to com pete with the club in Leith, the St. An drews So ci ety of Golfers built the first 18-hole course in 1764, cod i fied and pub lished the rules of golf and was re warded with the royal pa tron age of King Wil liam, who be stowed the ti tle “Royal and An cient” upon the club in 1834. The Royal and An cient Golf Club of St. An drews has been golf’s gov ern ing body ever since. That means St. An drews makes the rules, ap proves changes in rules and sanc tions tour na ments. Even the United States Golf As so ci a tion (USGA), the gov ern ing body for golf in the US, takes it cues from St. An drews. Tee times at St. An drews have to made years in ad vance and a once-in-a-life time trip to play golf “at the Royal and An cient” is a holy pil grim age for many golf ers. If you suc ceed in be com ing a golf pro, you’ll have to go – just once. Golf spread very quickly through out the Brit ish Em pire, which grew rap idly in the 19th cen tury. The first golf clubs founded out side Brit ain were all in In dia, start ing in 1820, which was then a Brit ish pos ses sion. De pending upon the source, some his to ri ans be lieve that a golf club was founded at Charleston, South Carolina in 1768. The es tab lish ment of St. An drew’s of New York in 1888 is better-doc u mented, how ever. The first golf tour na ments were held in Prestwick, Scot land in 1851 and spread south into Eng land shortly there af ter. The USGA was founded in 1894 to reg u late the game in the US, and by 1900 there were about 1,000 golf courses in the coun try. Golf pros made money by win ning tour na ments, of fer ing les sons and man ag ing courses, just as they do to day. Rub ber-cored balls sim i lar to those used to day were in tro duced in 1900, and dim ples were added in 1905. Irons re ceived their first grooved faces in 1902, and clubs with steel 6 shafts were in tro duced in 1910. The Pro fes sional Golfers As so ci a tion of Amer ica (PGA) was formed in 1916 to co or di nate Amer i can tour na ments. Golf had be come very pop u lar on both sides of the At lan tic, with the US and Brit ain host ing the most courses, tour na ments and pro fes sional play ers. The two coun tries split in 1921 when St. An drews im posed a size and weight limit on golf balls. Dis agreeing with the rule, the USGA wrote its own rules, ig nor ing the rules of the Royal and An cient un til 1951, when a com mon set of rules was agreed upon. To day, the USGA and St. An drews jointly gov ern the game of golf, hold ing a sum mit meet ing ev ery four years to go over the rules and al ter them as needed. To day, golf is one of the most pop u lar sports in the world. Men, women and children play the game by the millions, and golf is especially popular among elderly people who would find it very difficult to play most other sports. Avid golfers go on vacations specifically to play famous – or just interesting or scenically beautiful – courses around the world. Proximity to a golf course boosts the value of real estate. High schools and colleges sponsor golf teams. Purses for professional tournaments have never been bigger. Advances in materials technology have given players “irons” clubs with shafts of graphite, and “woods” clubs with heads of metallic alloys that didn’t even exist a few years ago. The inflation-adjusted cost of an 18-hole game has never been lower than it is today. There has never been a better time to get into a ca reer in pro fes sional golf. 7 WHERE PROS WORK NOT SUR PRIS INGLY, THE STATES WITH THE MOST GOLF COURSES ARE FLORIDA AND Cal i for nia, with about 1,000 each. The com bi na tion of warm weather, large pop u la tions and con stant in flux of tour ists makes them nat u ral lo ca tions for thriv ing lo cal golf in dus tries. But the state with the third-larg est num ber of golf courses is Mich i gan, which has a large pop u la tion, but long win ters and rel a tively lit tle tour ism. Golf may lend it self to mild cli mates long on plea sure-seek ers, but its ad dic tive, frus trat ing, glo ri ous na ture means that there are golf courses wher ever there are peo ple. What does this mean for you? For start ers, it means that you can be gin your ca reer pretty much any where you want to. If you’re play ing fre quently, as you should be, your first golf job will prob a bly come from one of the courses where you are a fa mil iar face. When you, as a young per son pre sum ably short of money, come into the same club house five days a week to play a round, don’t be sur prised when the pro or the head greenskeeper asks you if you’d be in ter ested in a part-time job. In fact, you should ask them first. Golf courses need many peo ple to do grunt la bor, like mow ing lawns and main tain ing greens, but those jobs re quire some skill and an un der stand ing of the im por tance of at ten tion to de tail. Any body can mow a lawn, but cor rectly mow ing a golf course is some thing that has to be learned. And full-time greenskeeping, a job you won’t be qual i fied to do for many years, is as fine a craft as there is. The point is, golf courses em ploy low-cost la bor ers, but they have to know that the peo ple they hire care about the game and will take care of the course. Many golf pros move around from course to course within the same met ro pol i tan area. That way, they can move up the lad der of the pro fes sion with out ac tu ally mov ing their home if they don’t want to. Some golf work is also sea sonal, so the great job you have with one course for the six warm months of the year may have to be sup ple mented with a not-so-great job for the other six months of the year. 8 A GOLF PRO’S WORK YOU WILL PROB A BLY DO MANY DIF FER ENT JOBS DUR ING YOUR CA REER AS A GOLF pro – some times sev eral at the same time. This kind of multitasking ap peals to some peo ple, but not to oth ers. If you think you’re go ing to spend your en tire ca reer just play ing golf or just run ning a pro shop, think again. If the thought of do ing many dif fer ent things si mul ta neously does n’t ap peal to you, you should prob a bly look into an other line of work. This list of brief job de scrip tions also in cludes a few jobs that you may have on your way to be com ing a pro, even if they aren’t your ul ti mate goal. Head Golf Professional Known sim ply as “the pro” in ev ery club house in the world, the head golf pro fes sional is the go-to-per son for all mat ters con cern ing golf. The pro typ i cally man ages the pro shop, teach ing pro grams and all em ploy ees par tic i pat ing in golf busi ness, such as cad dies. The pro may or may not over see the greenskeeping as pects of run ning the course, as those func tions may be in the hands of a golf course su per in ten dent. Pros re port ei ther to the club’s gen eral man ager or di rectly to the board of di rec tors. The ex act place ment of the pro in the club or course hi er ar chy will vary from one op er a tion to the next based mostly on size and bud get. All golf pros are ex pected to be able to par tic i pate in long-term busi ness plan ning for golf op er a tions. This in cludes an a lyz ing fi nan cial data to de ter mine green fees, cart rent als and pric ing in the pro shop, set ting fees for les sons and es tab lish ing rules for op er at ing hours. Pros al ways man age the pro shop, and need to have a good grasp of how to run a re tail op er a tion, from mer chan dis ing and ba sic ac count ing, to per son nel man age ment and cus tomer ser vice. Pros rep re sent their club or course in lo cal, state and na tional or ga ni za tions and to the me dia when ever the course is the site of a no ta ble event, such as a tour na ment. Pros are also usu ally the prime mov ers be hind spe cial pro grams, such as teach ing un der priv i leged kids to golf. Head golf pros are also ex pected to be able to ren der sound de ci sions on any thing else that may come up that in volves golf. Where to put the view ing stands for a tour na ment, how to set tle a scor ing or rules dis pute among club mem bers, and how to deal with strong winds are among the many ques tions a head golf pro will be asked. There are many chal lenges in this top ex ec u tive po si tion. 9 Assistant Golf Pro An as sis tant golf pro, some times known as a dep uty, is re spon si ble for help ing the head pro carry out all of the func tions of that of fice. Large clubs and busy courses may em ploy sev eral as sis tant pros, and the pro may par cel out spe cial ist du ties to each of them: one as sis tant may take charge of the teach ing pro gram, for ex am ple, while an other runs the pro shop. Most pros start out as as sis tant pros and spend sev eral years prov ing their abil i ties be fore they can com pete for the top jobs. Be ing an as sis tant-any thing re quires thor ough knowl edge not only of the job du ties, but also of the per son to whom you re port. You may have your own ideas on how to run the pro shop, but your job, whether you like it or not, is to run the shop the way the head pro wants it to be run. If you have a good boss, your opin ions will be heard and ap pre ci ated. They won’t al ways be used. Bosses get to be bosses be cause they know more than the peo ple who work for them. Course Superintendent Golf course su per in ten dents of ten rank along side head golf pros in the club or course hi er ar chy, also re port ing to the gen eral man ager or board of di rec tors. Where pros are re spon si ble for du ties as so ci ated with play ing the game, su per in ten dents are re spon si ble for the course it’s played upon. This is a big job. Su per in ten dents are re spon si ble for su per vis ing the con struc tion and main te nance of the course, pur chas ing and main tain ing the cap i tal equip ment needed for main te nance, keep ing the fleet of golf carts up and run ning, and main tain ing all land scap ing on the grounds, from the care fully man i cured greens to the flow ers in front of the club house. Su per in ten dents need ad vanced knowl edge of agron omy and turf man age ment, a per fect grasp of lo cal, state and fed eral en vi ron men tal leg is la tion, a thor ough un der stand ing of golf and how it is played and very good man a ge rial skills. If be ing a golf course su per in ten dent can be bro ken down into two func tional ar eas, they are agron omy (soil and plant man age ment) and per son nel man age ment. Su per in ten dents need much of the knowl edge typ i cally as so ci ated with farm ers or gar den ers, and they of ten em ploy large staffs of full- and part-time em ploy ees to carry out the work nec es sary to keep their course pris tine. Su per in ten dents who do their job well are hardly no ticed be cause 10 [...]... Trades www.golfcoursetrades.com O Golf Digest Magazine www.golfdigest.com 27 O Golf for Women Magazine www.golfforwomen.com O Golf Magazine www.golfonline.com O Golf Marketing Worldwide www.hole -in- won.com O Golf Pro Help www.golfprohelp.com O Golf Range Association of America www.golfrange.org O Golf Search www.golfsearchinc.com O Golf Tips Magazine www.golftipsmag.com O Golfweek Magazine www.golfweek.com... for many people In your early years as a golf pro you could find yourself doing a lot of things that don’t involve swinging a club Running a golf course requires activities involving dirt and grass Maintaining the grounds, known as greenskeeping, typically employs more people than any other part of a golf course operation You may be able to keep your hands clean later in your career, but in the early... Great Golf Events www.greatgolfevents.com O Internet Golf Review www.internetgolfreview.com O Keepers of the Game www.keepersofthegame.org O Kemper Golf www.kempergolf.com O Ladies Professional Golf Association www.lpga.com O Links Magazine www.linksmagazine.com O National Association of Golf Tournament Directors www.nagtd.com 28 O National Golf Foundation www.ngf.org O Play Golf America www.playgolfamerica.com... O Burns Golf Design www.burnsgolf.com O Business Golf Unlimited www.bizgolf.com O ClubJobs www.clubjobs.net O Club Managers Association of America www.cmaa.org O Fairways and Greens Magazine www.fairwaysgreens.com O Family Golf Association www.familygolf.org O Golf. com www .golf. com O Golf Business News www.golfbusinessnews.com O Golf Course Management Directory www.golfcoursemanagement.com O Golf Course... O Premier Golf Services www.premiergolfservices.com O Professional Clubmakers of America www.proclubmakers.org O Professional Golfers Association www.pga.com O Professional Golfers Career College www.progolfed.com O Professional Golf Teachers and Coaches of America www.pgtca.com O Professional Golf Teachers Association of America www.pgtaa.com O Redwing Golf www.redwinggolf.com O Reliable Golf Course... marketable skill, but having that nugget of talent to begin with is essential If you didn’t know you have talent, you probably wouldn’t be thinking about a career as a professional golfer 19 ATTRACTIVE FEATURES IF THERE WEREN’T A LOT TO LIKE ABOUT A CAREER IN GOLF, THERE WOULDN’T BE so many people trying to get into it Golf is associated with the finer things in life It’s something that most golfers would be... that’s what it took to squeeze in nine holes before class or work Some semesters I played 18 holes a day by playing the front nine in the early morning and the back nine in the early evening That’s the kind of dedication it takes if you want to become a pro I spent the first few years after college playing professionally I drove around the country, playing in tournaments and winning enough of them to make... seriously considered doing anything else I won my first few trophies in local amateur tournaments and went on to become the captain of my high school and college golf teams, where I acquired a shelfful of trophies In college, I did the smart thing and majored in business administration Being a golf pro usually involves running a pro shop, so I figured I needed some basic business knowledge I’ve also... Classes offered by one such institution, the Professional Golfers Career College in Temecula, California, include golf shop operations, country club management, golf course development and design, turf management, fitness for golf, techniques of golf teaching, organization of golf tournaments and history of golf Such a program has undeniable value, and is worth looking into Most golf pros, however, go to... go to conventional universities and major in such fields of study as business administration, parks and recreation, marketing or various specializations within physical education All of these majors teach skills that will be valuable if you pursue a career as a golf pro Business administration delves 22 into the basics of running any business, including accounting, economics and personnel management . try ing to get into it. Golf is as so ci ated with the finer things in life. It’s some thing that most golf ers would be happy to do for free. And be ing. vis ing the con struc tion and main te nance of the course, pur chas ing and main tain ing the cap i tal equip ment needed for main te nance, keep ing