Page 12 - GreenMaster Winter 2022

Diverse teams - including women - are needed to keep people connected to the business/operation/facility.
“What we’re encouraging is having superintendents do a few things a little bit better,” he said. “How you recognize people, enhance that a bit; how you hire people, look for different areas of expertise; search out people with different experiences. People do not necessar- ily have to come from another golf operation to be of huge value to a turf team. Often times it is about the little things you do, and the little things add up. Look after those, do them right and bigger things will fall into place. ED&I can be seen as this great big animal you have to try and tackle but the concept is very scale- able.”
WOMEN IN TURF
One area of ED&I already being capitalized on at golf clubs across Canada is a growing number of women on the course maintenance side of operations.
Writer Adam Stanley recently wrote a piece for SCOREGolf Magazine called ‘Super Women’. In it, he highlighted the growing segment of women superintendents leading turf teams across the country and how the stigmas of turf maintenance being a male-only vocation continue to be broken down.
“There’s the old adage if you see it, you can be it,” says Karen Rumohr, AGS, Superintendent at Woodside Golf Course in Airdrie, Alberta. “Encouraging more women to get on grounds crews by pushing ED&I can only help us attract more people to this industry. I admit we have leaps and bounds to go to involve more
Some of Dean Baker’s team at Burlington Golf and County Club compliments his beliefs that women are the single biggest untapped resource the golf industry has.
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women and more diverse individuals to the turf side but not one bone in my body suggests that’s a bad thing.”
Dean Baker wholeheartedly agrees. Never one to follow tradition- al hiring practices, Burlington Golf and Country Club’s superintendent believes women are the single biggest untapped resource the golf industry has. He also maintains that some of his best employees are women.
“If you look back at our crews during my time hosting Canadian Opens (Glen Abbey GC) most of the methodical, attention to detail, really important jobs were predominantly done by women,” Baker said. “Not to mention the strength and camarad- erie they bring to the group. Women breaking into this male dominated industry no doubt have to be of strong mind and will, but many have a proven track record of outworking male counterparts. I have had the greatest pleasure watching women take on this side of the business and succeed.”
Baker’s advice to fellow super- intendents who continue to go back to the same well to fill labour short- age gaps or add to their teams is to be more intuitive.
“It’s not about the resume,” he says, “and teaching people how to do the job, well, that’s the easy part. Most important is looking for that certain personality and a strong work ethic. We have taken chances on many people without experience, and they have turned out to be the best employees.”
AN ONGOING JOURNEY
Eighteen months after diving into ED&I waters without formal direction or structure I am pleased to report the Golf Journalists Association of Canada (with a little help from some friends) now has ED&I firmly entrenched into our mission state- ment and overall mandate. It’s paid off. Women’s membership is up 12 percent with a few of those members already showing interest in joining the board of directors.
With the turf industry and CGSA being a key stakeholder of the game in Canada, adopting Syngenta’s ED&I initiative has the potential to assist the turf industry on multiple fronts. This expands beyond the opportun- ities that exist with labour and team recruitment.
“Golf is unique in that the sport has to be completely in sync with the turf and vice versa. I think that’s the opportunity,” Kobelsky said. “To bring all of golf’s stakeholders together on this issue is requisite because in many ways it’s attitudinal, it’s about how you work with differ- ent people from different backgrounds, different experiences and how to be inclusive of everyone to bring that together in some harmony. ED&I can significantly enhance the overall health of the industry and the game.”
That’s the kind of vision all of us can get behind. GM