Golf Careers: A Dream Or A Drag?

If "The Great Resignation" has you rethinking your career path, you may have heard the advice, "Do what you love." And if you love golf, you might be considering a golf career! As the industry explodes, so too do the professional opportunities associated with the sport.

All you have to do is take one look around your local course or club to see how many roles go into creating a golf ecosystem. Sure, you’ll see the turf and the greens keepers working on daily maintenance duties, but did you ever think about the complexities involved in designing and creating a golf course? Specialized architects are required to work with both investors’ desires and the available space and terrain to come up with new greens that provide a wide array of difficulties to golfers of all types and ages. The choices in professional golf careers start with the golf architect and only spread out into a range of occupations and available job markets from there.

Now that you’ve taken a good long look at the turf and realized that there’s far more to a golf course than pretty rolling hills and trimmed greens (though keeping those hills and grass looking pristine is a whole other career in itself), take the time to visit the golf complex. There are many professional golf careers involved just inside the building. For starters, the pro shop is the heartbeat of the facility. Players of all levels can find guides for training and instruction, advice on which equipment is best for specific needs, as well as others who are skilled in the sales and repairs of equipment itself. The pro shop is much of what provides income to the golf course facility, once you take away the money provided from memberships and patronage. If you have a background in retail or hospitality, that could be a good choice for you.

More than that, though, there must be someone at the top of this multi industry complex, running the well oiled machine and calling the shots for the facility. Operations and management is a challenging professional golf career that promises to be one with long-term potential. Rising to the growing industry’s need, educational facilities such as colleges and academies offer business programs on golf complex operations. The programs also include practical training, which means that those with natural abilities and talent could certainly develop both their business potential and work on breaking into the LPGA spotlight in one fell swoop.

The wide array of educational facilities that will help you get a jump start in a professional golf career give you plenty of choice for your type of specialization. Most programs take around two years to complete, but you’ll receive a solid set of skills and degree certification that makes you a valuable asset to any golf complex or facility. What’s more, you can branch into private coaching and take on students, to develop your own business.

Taking a golfing career into new industries is easy when you apply a little imagination, and you can branch into other opportunities, such as sports injury treatment or physiotherapy. The possibilities of turning a game into a professional golf career are vast and all it requires is some creativity and determination to develop a great opportunity.