{"id":136669,"date":"2025-09-14T12:04:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-14T12:04:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/136669\/"},"modified":"2025-09-14T12:04:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-14T12:04:09","slug":"bigga-tackles-shortages-in-golfs-invisible-profession","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/136669\/","title":{"rendered":"BIGGA tackles shortages in golf’s ‘invisible’ profession"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n Jim Croxton<\/a> is the chief executive of the British and International Golf<\/a> Greenkeepers Association (BIGGA) based in York, which has 6,000 members including roughly 1,000 based in Scotland. He says “visibility is absolutely essential” for the profession.\n<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n What exactly is\u00a0BIGGA?\n<\/p>\n

\n The organisation was founded on January 1, 1987. Before that, there were at least three bodies\u00a0\u2013\u00a0an English, a Scottish, and a British\u00a0\u2013 that were all doing broadly the same thing, with much overlap.\n<\/p>\n

\n We serve and represent greenkeepers, who we believe are the lifeblood of the game of golf. There are more than five\u00a0million regular golfers in the UK and the sport generates\u00a0nearly 100,000 full-time equivalent jobs, adding\u00a0around \u00a310 billion\u00a0to the UK economy.\n<\/p>\n

\n How long have you been in charge?\n<\/p>\n

\n I joined BIGGA\u00a0as chief executive in May 2011. Before that, I worked for the PGA in a variety of roles for 16 years. I actually grew up on a golf course that was run by my parents, so golf has been in me since I was a kid.\n<\/p>\n

\n \"JimJim Croxton has been the chief executive of BIGGA since 2011 (Image: BIGGA)\n<\/p>\n

\n Why is there a shortage of people coming into the industry?\n<\/p>\n

\n There is a recruitment shortage in most sectors at the moment, and hospitality and leisure are among the hardest hit.\n<\/p>\n

\n Greenkeeping is such an unseen profession \u2013 everyone can see the end product, but most of\u00a0the background work that takes place isn’t visible.\n<\/p>\n

\n After the pandemic, we saw a slow trickle of people leaving office-based work to find work in the outdoors, but there are not a sufficient number of young people\u00a0taking up land-based careers. We’re addressing this through initiatives like First Green<\/a>, where we take schoolchildren to golf clubs to witness potential future careers in the trade.\n<\/p>\n

\n What else can be done?\n<\/p>\n

\n Visibility is absolutely essential. Golf is a high-profile sport, especially in Scotland, the Home of Golf, but the supporting industry doesn’t usually get in the spotlight.\n<\/p>\n

\n We are working with career organisations, colleges, and other stakeholders to heighten the visibility of opportunities available. Shifting perceptions is the most significant of the challenges. Golf is sometimes seen as elitist or environmentally harmful, though in reality, especially in Scotland, it is a highly inclusive sport and golf course maintenance is a positive to environmentalism by, for example, increasing biodiversity.\n<\/p>\n

\n \"WomenWomen are still ‘woefully underrepresented’ in greenkeeping (Image: BIGGA)\n<\/p>\n

\n Also, women are still woefully underrepresented<\/a> in greenkeeping: it was historically very much a manual profession and became totally male-dominated but we are now seeing more women come into it. It’s still very low though, having increased from a little over 1% of our\u00a0membership to just over 2% in the last few years.\n<\/p>\n

\n From the extremes of Storm Eowyn<\/a> in January to one of the hottest and driest Mays on record<\/a> \u2013 how are greenkeepers coping?\n<\/p>\n

\n They’re managing it exceedingly well. Greenkeepers are extremely adaptable, and this is unavoidable as the weather becomes increasingly unpredictable<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n

\n Golf courses need long-term strategies to manage these fluctuations, particularly when it comes to water. This involves coping with excess water and managing water shortages. A lot of them have invested in drainage, high-tech irrigation systems, and water storage solutions.\n<\/p>\n

\n The greatest challenge throughout this year has been maintaining turf in good health through prolonged periods of dryness. Courses have been much browner than those in 2023 and 2024, which is fine and actually presents a different but very rewarding challenge to golfers.\n<\/p>\n

\n \"BetterBetter data collection has improved consistency, performance, and turf health (Image: BIGGA)\n<\/p>\n

\n How can golfers help greenkeepers?\n<\/p>\n

\n Understanding is key. Nowadays, it looks as though everybody wants to rush into judgment on facilities or services without knowing the catch to them. Golfing in the UK, for example, costs a lot less than golfing in the US\u00a0or the\u00a0majority of Europe, and that means\u00a0there are fewer resources to service the courses.\n<\/p>\n

\n Golfers are generally very interested in learning about the technical aspects of greenkeeping and will co-operate when they understand what is required. There needs to be open and continuing dialogue between golfers and greenkeepers in order to create that understanding and co-operation.\n<\/p>\n

\n What has been the greatest technological advancement in greenkeeping during the last 10 years?\n<\/p>\n

\n The most significant innovation during the last decade has been in robotics and autonomy. Many courses are now utilising robotic mowers that can essentially cut 24 hours a day (between charging stops), freeing up greenkeepers to spend more time on agronomics and attention to detail.\n<\/p>\n

\n During that same time frame there has been a significant increase in the importance of data collection to improve consistency, performance and to model conditions relating to turf health.\n<\/p>\n

\n Access the entire series of Around the Greens here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jim Croxton is the chief executive of the British and International Golf Greenkeepers Association (BIGGA) based in York,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":136670,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[5904,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-136669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-golf","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136669","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=136669"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136669\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/136670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=136669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=136669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=136669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}