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2020 and beyond
During its last three meetings, the GCSAA Board of Directors and the association’s executive management have been discussing how the golf course superintendent profession will look in the year 2020 and beyond.
The way we’ve evaluated that is by first looking at what society generally will be like in 2020, then specifically what the game of golf will be like then.
In our second session on the topic, which coincided with the board’s August meeting, we looked at what the golf facility itself will look like, and at our late October meeting we examined what the future might hold for the golf course management profession. In January we’ll extend our discussions about the
profession.
The board is taking the time to have these discussions because it’s critically important to anticipate the future needs of GCSAA members and the “macro” environment in which the profession will evolve in the next two decades. If we do this correctly and are diligent in our efforts, our members will be part of an organization that has anticipated as much as possible the challenges of the future, has positioned itself to meet those challenges and has put into place programs and services that help members cope with a complex future in a sophisticated and changing profession.
One of the key assumptions we’re making during our discussions is that little of what superintendents will be doing in 2020 will look like what they’re doing today. We think that society will be different, the game of golf will be different — although we don’t know exactly how — and the profession will most certainly be different.
Perhaps most importantly, it’s become clear during these discussions that the key to the success of GCSAA members and of GCSAA itself lies with the success of the facility. These discussions allowed us to “move outside the box” on this issue and see that as the facility goes, so go our members.
Although not a result of this current series of discussions, the Golf Industry Show fits quite neatly into this conversation. The show, which is undergoing changes with the addition of the National Golf Course Owners Association, the Golf Course Builders Association of America, the American Society of Golf Course Architects and, beginning in 2007, the Club Managers Association of America, is a reflection of what’s happening in the industry as a whole. The board believes, as I do, that GCSAA must help lead that change, and the GIS is just one response.
But change is relative. The Golf Industry Show will not double in size because of NGCOA’s involvement; the owners will bring fewer than 1,000 new attendees and about 10,000 square feet of exhibit space. Compare that with GCSAA’s 20,000-plus attendees and our 250,000-plus square feet of space. In 2007, CMAA will bring about 40,000 square feet of exhibits and about 3,000 attendees. So the show will move to about 300,000 square feet in 2007, only about 24,000 square feet more than our 2001 Dallas trade show peak.
Rest assured that the talk about change will continue. The board’s conversations about the profession’s future will move beyond January and into the following two board meetings. And we are not having these discussions alone. The board has invited industry experts in for all of the conversations, and we will ask more to attend. In addition, chapter leaders from the geographical areas where we meet and the local amateur golf association executives also have been invited, and that will continue.
These conversations may not be specific, or tactical, or in “the here and now.” But they are imperative if we are to meet our members’ future needs. And there really isn’t an end point to these conversations because there isn’t an end point to change. Change and conversation about change will help shape the association’s long-term strategy, and that’s what is really driving these discussions.
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