Greenskeeper Job Description
A greenskeeper is an essential employee at any location that places importance on having well-maintained, green grass. Greenskeepers are most often associated with golf courses, but they may also find work maintaining the turf at driving ranges, baseball stadiums, soccer fields and football stadiums.
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Experience
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Greenskeepers need to know how to handle lawn mowers, weeders and trimmers. Greenskeepers also should have a basic knowledge of how to plant grass and fertilize it. As greenskeepers are often responsible for seeing that noxious weeds do not grow on a course or a field, they need experience with weedkillers as well as hand shovels to dig up weeds that appear.
Duties
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Greenskeepers maintain differences in the lengths of grass on a golf course. They must have an understanding for how high the grass in the rough should be compared to the length of the grass along the fairway. They are also responsible for watering the greens and monitoring the golf course's sprinkler system to keep the greens from becoming too fast or too slow. Greenskeepers sometimes speak with golfers on the course, who may have questions regarding the speed of the greens, the type of grass on the course or the length of the rough.
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Salary
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According to PayScale.com, greenskeepers earned average wages of $9.08 to $12.01 per hour, or $20,532 to $34,046 per year, as of July 2010. Most jobs do not require formal education, and some greenskeepers work fewer than 40 hours a week, which limits earnings, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Job Prospects
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According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, greenskeepers, and others who work in the grounds maintenance field, should be able to consistently find work. The BLS estimates that employment for grounds maintenance workers should increase by 18 percent between 2008 and 2018. Job prospects are best in those locations that have milder climates where the grass grows all year long.
Considerations
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Many states require that those workers who apply pesticides must first pass a test about the processes involved with using and disposing pesticides. Once completing these tests, greenskeepers receive a license or certificate that allows them to handle pesticides if needed.
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References
Resources
- Photo Credit golf green image by Ana de Sousa from Fotolia.com
