While some golfers might ask golf course superintendents for the occasional lawn care tip or landscaping advice, they can now get the real thing from golf course maintenance staff members at Rocky Bayou Country Club in Niceville, Fla. Last year, the club’s maintenance department started offering lawn and landscape services to members who live in the immediate Rocky Bayou community, and the property also opened its shop doors for golf car service and repairs to all members who own personal golf cars.
“I can always come up with ideas for other departments to generate capital funds, and I was trying to find an innovative way to generate more revenue for our capital account,” says Golf Course Superintendent Wayne Phillips, whose staff’s contributions to the club’s food-and-beverage program through property-grown fruit and vegetables were highlighted in the October 2012 C&RB (“Locally Grown”).
Most of Rocky Bayou’s members have their own golf cars, Phillips says, and he saw an opportunity when a local repairman who serviced their vehicles retired a couple years ago.
“I came up with an ad for golf cart repair as a spring tune-up for electric- and gas-powered carts. We devised a price list for that and other repair needs,” Phillips explains. “The landscape services started as a way to help people get ready for a new growing season.”
Ads were placed in the club’s monthly newsletter and on bulletin boards around the property, and the initiatives soon spread by word-of-mouth as well. All services are billed directly to the members’ accounts and added to their monthly statements.
THE GOAL: Create additional revenue for capital expenditures at Rocky Bayou Country Club and serve the membership in innovative ways.
THE PLAN: The club’s golf course maintenance staff now provides lawn and landscape services to members who live in the neighborhood surrounding the property, and a technician offers golf car repair and maintenance services to all members who own personal golf cars.
THE PAYOFF: In their first year of operation, the initiatives have generated about $15,000 in revenue to fund upgrades to the golf course maintenance facility.
Rocky Bayou CC Superintendent Wayne Phillips (above) accounts for all expenses related to his department’s lawn and landscape and golf-car service initiatives separately, but has realized cost efficiencies in combination with regular course maintenance operations.
“We bill a dollar amount per hour for two men to do a particular job,” notes Phillips. “I needed to devise equal billing for all members. I needed to be sure I treated everybody equally.”
Standard lawn and landscape services now provided by Phillips’ department include mowing, shrub pruning, edging, blowing, string trimming, and leaf collection. Additional services offered by estimate include sand topdressing, lawn aerification, and irrigation system audit and repair.
Members who receive the services must live in the surrounding neighborhood, so crews can reach their homes by utility cart. “I can keep two men busy on these projects on a part-time basis and still use them on the golf course,” Phillips explains. “It’s not a 40-hour-a-week job. They probably spend 15 hours a week, if that, on lawn and landscaping services.”
The lawn care services are priced competitively, Phillips says. “Most of the members who are using our service did not have a lawn care service prior to this,” he notes.
For golf car service, a flat fee is charged for one of the two technicians on staff to tune up electric and gas cars by checking and filling batteries, checking brakes and adjusting them if needed, checking tires and tire pressure, checking all running lights, greasing all applicable fittings, and inspecting and replacing belts if needed. For gasoline cars, other standard services include changing the oil and filter, and checking and replacing the fuel filter and spark plugs if needed.
Other golf car services include battery testing and diagnosis, battery replacement, electrical troubleshooting and repair, electrical wiring for street-legal use, tire replacement and repair, frame work and repair, cosmetic repair, belt replacement, clutch repair or replacement, and annual inspection and service.
“Any of our members that have a cart problem will now come to us first,” says Phillips. “We usually have a couple of carts in the shop a week.”
The maintenance department runs the lawn and golf car repair services like a business, and the expenses are designated under a separate line item in the maintenance budget.
“To keep track of it honestly, all expenses have to be in a separate category,” reports Phillips. “I code the supplies separately. But if I order pine straw for the golf course, I might set aside 100 bales for lawn and landscaping needs.”
In addition, he says, the maintenance staff does not enter into a contract with a member for these services. “They just pay us for the work we do, and we have the flexibility and the freedom to come when we can,” he notes. “The members understand if something comes up and we need to put them off for a few days.”
Instant Idea
Fescue sprinkler head markers, made from one-foot-long wooden dowel rods that are painted green, with the top two inches painted white for added visibility, are now used to help the Course & Grounds Department at the Country Club of Virginia, Richmond, Va., mark above-ground irrigation heads in the fine fescue and tall fescue secondary rough of the club’s Tuckahoe Creek course. “Marking the sprinkler heads increases their visibility and reduces the chance of heads being hit by golf carts or maintenance equipment,” the club reports. The markers are screwed into the top of the sprinkler head, with no damage to the head, and cost $1 per head to make.
These services, Phillips emphasizes, are seen as supplemental income, and golf course maintenance duties remain the crew’s top priority. “We wanted to show that we are willing to make innovative efforts to fund things that our members come here to enjoy and to provide the product they expect,” he says. “It’s just another way to build relationships and a level of trust with our members.”
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