Golf Business Management Career Opportunities

Golf business management is a lot like golf course management. Business management in this industry, though, has more to do with all operations than just the course. It can also include marketing, food and beverage service, tournament hosting, and hiring and firing employees. The best thing you can do if you\'d like to run a course is to get a degree in Professional Golf Management.

Many colleges are specialized; you can find colleges for nurses, mechanics and even golfers. Colleges and institutions across the United States offer Associate\'s degrees in management. Some colleges offer more focused degrees, such as Complex Operations and Management. Other, more traditional, four-year colleges offer majors in Business Administration or Sports Science with an emphasis in Sports Management. Depending on the type of career you want, you can choose the degree and program that best suits you.

Not only do golfing majors work for courses, but also for course management companies to run multiple facilities. Business management courses are essential and important for those wanting to work as a course consultant. Courses that deal with budgeting, the environment and technology are also helpful for any golf career. Landscape designers need to be aware of how landscape affects the course as well as environmental effects of the choice of greens, other grasses and movement of trees affects the Earth.

Managing a course or other industry related business means knowing irrigation techniques, office management, sales and merchandising and the life cycle of grass. You can read books and find software that will help you to better understand these business competencies, but a college degree would be your best bet in getting a thorough education. The Associate\'s degrees take 16 months to complete, so it\'s not too much time to learn what can help catapult your career.

A degree is helpful whether you want to sell equipment or be a club tester too. Other career options include broadcaster or commentator, cart manufacturing and sales, club designer, club fitter or assembler and repair service. There are more than 100 golf-related career options that don\'t require you to shoot like Tiger Woods. The courses at accredited institutions can assist you in landing a career working with multiple courses or with the one course of your dreams.

Engineering-minded students can opt to study turf management, in which a career as a turf engineer or turf specialist is the common route. These specialists maintain and decide upon which types of turf grass should be used on which sections of a course. Fertilization, diseases, planting, irrigation and maintenance are all specialties of a turf engineer.

Golf professionals are one of the highly sought-after careers. Not only does your game have to be great, but you must also know how to teach others to make their game great. Patience is a virtue in this vocation. Many Pros start out as Assistant Pros and work their way up to Head Pro. Assistant Pros often help course managers with all aspects of daily operations, like merchandising, tournament operations, grounds keeping and finally, instruction. You must have a good customer service attitude to excel at this career. And, you have to be willing to work on every aspect of the course before getting the chance to just teach lessons.

Many shops have a Head Merchandiser, who orders all merchandise for the shop. Merchandisers are responsible for pricing, forecasting and budgeting items to be sold to customers in the shop. Merchandisers are expected to keep the goods moving, while giving the shop a profit. As you can see, the opportunities are endless when it comes to a career in this field.

Many industry jobs are out there, just look on course Web sites at their career openings. You might find something that sparks your interest. And if a degree is required, you know that you can have one within two years and then you can enjoy the rest of your working life. Golf business management might just be your next step.