GOLF COURSE BUSINESS MANAGEMENT: Lessons from Around the World

This second book in this book series focuses on the physical management of the golf course and cost efficacy. This book will assist not only the golf course superintendent, but also owners, golf professionals, professional tour players, club boards, and operations managers as well. The topics I’ve chosen to illustrate in this book are a real-world litany of the most common failures and real successes that I have confronted firsthand over decades of my actual business experience. Through many years I have turned to my writing for shear survival - for myself, colleagues, and employers. I have used the written word as a substantial tool in order to teach and convince others about how to stop failing and to inspire achieving success on golf courses. I’ve drawn every topic from actual business occurrences that have been observed or managed over my career of turning around failures into achievements and successful golf course businesses. Successfully learning to control costs and increase profits on the golf course. The demanding maintenance methods and practices used for high-performance military aircraft are exactly transferable for successful golf course management. There are fundamental reasons that golf and turfgrass management employ generally archaic technology – changing from the archaic will provides better service and profits. Going forward, golf will only its full prosperity if the archaic, traditional compartmentalization of redundant management job positions can be tossed aside to allow individuals with multiple skill sets to be unloosed allowing businesses to profit. Today golf courses in every geographic region of the world absolutely need to employee fewer staff as developed nations depopulate and labor scarcity increases. Managers must also be individuals - simultaneously capable of wearing many professional hats with high proficiency. Below is what Tom Hsieh, Proprietor / Operator, Gleneagles GC at McLaren Park, San Francisco, California USA, has to say about this great book: "Jim’s new book series encapsulates a lifetime of work on multiple continents and numerous golf properties. He imparts personal knowledge and adds some entertaining aphorisms along the way: “Live like a lion for one day, rather than a sheep for 100 years” or “It’s about the golf course dummy”. If those quotes don’t make you giggle, he sprinkles in some from Dr. MacKenzie, Confucius, Voltaire, Shakespeare, and strangely (for me) Donald Trump. Those along with some very specific advice on operating a golf course, charting a philosophical map of how to survive and thrive in one of the most challenging businesses in the world... "Jim’s advice is like a cold drink of water after a long hot day shoveling aerified cores off your greens. His advice is folksy, which hints at his upbringing. He also teaches you to pay attention to the details, as all pilots must, something he learned flying in the Navy and managing hundreds of golf properties all over the world. He is also a consummate professional who doesn’t mind being the chief cook and bottle washer because sometimes you just have to get it done... " If I were in 2004 again and I had only one book series to read, it would be Jim’s."