**Ask a golf course employee**

[nehianh]

Thought this could be interesting.

I've worked as a grounds crew worker for 3 years and feel I know quite a bit about how things work.

ask me stuff and i'll answer if i know.

if this is no good please delete

[4Tay]

How often do you cut the grass (fairway, rough, greens)?

How often do you water the grass (fairway, rough, greens)?

What's your typical day like?

Biggest peeve about golfers?

[nehianh]

1. we cut the greens everyday, fairways are cut 3-4 times during the week depending on the events for that week and rough is continually cut by one old retired guy.

2. the course is in minnesota so depending on how much rain we get the grass is watered in cycles everynight and if we have not had rain in a while watering is done during the day both with sprinkler systems and sometimes by hand on areas like green collars.

3. my day this summer consisted of getting to the course at 6am and complaining about how tired i was. in the morning from about 6-10 is when greens, tees, and fairways are cut and the bunkers are raked. i usually cut tees which is done with a walking mower or i cut approaches on the fairway. all mowing is done on a riding mower except for tees. then there are odd jobs like divot service on some fairways and tee boxes, and trimming around the club house or weed whipping-the worst job.

4. biggest pet peeve are golfers that are too impatient to wait until a mower is out of range before hitting a shot either from the tee or on the fairway

[tuq]

n,

How much interaction did you typically have with golfers? Given your role I would say far less than cart shed or pro shop folks. Particularly since your job was specifically to get there before them and/or stay out of their way.

Also, is there a general air of disdain towards golfers by staff? I get this feeling from pro shop staff when I'm in there that they're fairly miserable in their moderate-paying jobs and hate the whole customer service aspect of it. It just seems to hang in the air. Then again I may be projecting that on them because when I was in the service industry "the customer is always right" mantra was the thing that drove me the most batshit crazy. That said, even if your job didn't pay as much the whole being left alone thing probably made up for it quite a bit.

[Troll_Inc]

In season, how many grounds crew workers work per day?

And how much does this differ between a good private course and a decent daily fee course?

Do you move the pins everyday? (Who decides pin placement?)

How many groundhogs live on your course and have you ever tried to dynamite them?

How many un-fixed ballmarks are there per day and do you fix them (all)?

[nehianh]

interaction is different from member to member, some of them are real jerks while others will talk to you, lets say if you are working on a tee. its probably like any other line of work some people are nice some are not. arrogance is a large problem you could say.

there are certain members that everyone on our crew will put effort into not getting out of the way in a polite manner.

[tuq]

Until this last post I didn't know it was a private club. Interesting.

Also, it's always been a dream of mine to be the guy that cuts the holes, but I think it would get old after a day or two. Plus I think Troll completely missed your day-to-day job so I'm not sure you can answer his questions.

[nehianh]

yes it is private.

during the summer there is one superintendent, an assistant, a gardener, a mechanic and then about 8 grounds laborers you could call them, i'm a laborer, not too sure but my guess is that at some public courses that may have a championship and executive course they may have more employees.

i've never learned to cut cups 1. because almost everyone else knows how and 2. i dont want to do that id rather cut grass.

pins are moved almost everyday depending on events at the course.

no groundhogs.

unfixed ball marks are our responsibility because the old superintendent who had been working at the course for some 40 years decided that the sand/seed mixture that was given to the memembers to fix their own divots was not working. so now we have to go out every other day and fill divots on fair ways by hand-second worst job behind weed whipping. there can be hundreds of divots over the course of the week as the course gets a lot of play.

from what i hear from other guys is that cutting cups is a good break from time to time but if you were to get stucking doing it for a week straight it gets old real fast.

[offTopic]

- Do you like golf?
- Do the grounds crew get a chance to play?
- What's the policy on found golf balls? Could you conceivably start a little ebay side gig selling the crusty old farts' Pro-V1s?

[nehianh]

yeah i like golf, terrible at it but i get to play for free on a private course that i help maintain which makes it that much better.

finders keepers losers dont care cause theyre rich i have 2 five gallon buckets full of balls, i usually just sell the pro v1s to my uncles