The head greenkeeper at Sankt Jörgen Park in Sweden, Andreas Flodman, takes us through his average day.
What time do you arrive at the club and what is your morning routine?
I usually arrive at 5.30am as it’s important for us to be out in good time before golfers arrive. I often do a rough plan for the week and then adjust it on the day depending on weather / events. We are a privately owned course that forms part of a wider business park so our jobs often range outside of ‘regular course maintenance’! After our morning briefing, we all go out on the course together to work collaboratively to solve any issues.
How many people are there in your team and do you share tasks?
We have four full-time greenkeepers, two part-time mechanics and six to eight seasonal guys and summer staff to look after the 18-hole course, surroundings, hotel, resort and business park. I do try to share all the tasks, with the daily and weekly plans displayed clearly on a TV in our meeting room.
How do you motivate your colleagues?
I try to motivate my colleagues by showing clear plans, keeping everyone informed on what’s happening around the golf course and educating the team to share tasks to keep the job varied and interesting. Everyone can’t do everything but it’s motivating to do new stuff instead of the same job every day / week.
What aspects of your job give you the greatest satisfaction?
The greatest satisfaction is to have a motivated team that shares my passion to present a really good golf course and business park. To accommodate large and corporate events we sometimes have to work long days or start even earlier to make sure the course is in great shape. It’s great to have a willing team that are happy to do that, and play their part in producing the best course we can. The team I have at the moment is probably the best we’ve ever had and it’s hugely satisfying to all be pulling in the same direction to help each other and present an amazing golf course.
And the least satisfaction?
The least satisfying aspect is when course condition is not so good, usually caused by a bad spring start. Even if you’re not hearing negative comments, knowing that the course isn’t the way you want it is a tough mental game.
Disease or damage through the winter can sometimes mean you’re not achieving what you want until early June.
Have you attended any courses recently, and if so, what did you take away?
We visited some neighbouring golf courses during the low season, looking at bunkers, ponds and greens. It’s always nice to see other courses and what they do / don’t do and you always take away good tips and information.
I actually started to play golf again this year after a six-year break so the plan is to visit more courses during the playing season.
What is your favourite season of the year and why?
My favourite season is all seasons! In the winter we do a lot of construction projects, shaping new parts of the course before it gets really busy in the spring as we prepare to open and welcome golfers again.
The biggest challenge of the spring is often to find good staff, but as I said, this year we’ve been really lucky. The summer is good, you have the staff and the time to spend on things you want to do, rather than have to do. The autumn is perhaps the worst, but that’s because the weather here in Sweden sucks! If we get a good autumn day, we often focus on drainage jobs, so it’s not all bad!
Are you witnessing evidence of climate change and, if so, how has your job had to adapt to changing weather patterns?
For sure, but you can’t do much to change that, more you have to adapt. The seasons have changed since I was a kid, and everything is much more extreme – super cold or super warm, super wet or super dry so it’s a challenge to balance that year-round.
Sometimes ‘less is more’ so if we maybe can’t get onto the course because it’s too wet, we’ll go and work somewhere else in the resort while we wait. It’s also important we try and educate people on how hard it is to try and create a good golf course in Sweden. It is very difficult for us to survive the winter without damage from snow mould (fusarium patch) and other issues such as dollar spot – all made worse by the climate.
Do you have a feeding programme for your fairways? How do you ensure your greens have good colour?
We do create a feeding programme with the help of our suppliers, but nutrition is always applied ‘by eye’ and only when it’s needed. Suståne 5-2-4 is a big part of our granular programme, with two to four applications per season. We switched our greens programme a few years ago, looking to organic products and are trying to be chemical free as soon as possible. In particular, we want to lower our nitrogen content in the ground and Suståne has played a big part in that transition.
With a growing focus on sustainability, do you deploy any sustainable practices in the management of your course?
We think about the environment all the time. We have already switched a number of our vehicles and hand tools to electric and plan to expand our fleet of robots soon. It’s good for the environment and means we can save fuel and staff costs in the longer term. We also work to support our tree populations and insects with the introduction of flowers and taller grasses in the roughs. As previously mentioned, we’re also turning to organics with the stricter rules and regulations on chemical usage which means we have to focus more on boosting plant strength to help them fight against attacks from disease.
What are the technological developments that you feel have been the most important in your career to date?
A lot of what we do here is actually classic, basic greenkeeping with a lot of manual work to get things in the right shape. Obviously GPS sprayers and so on are available but we still use a ‘classic’ hanging sprayer for all our work.
We are always looking at new technology on the market and, for us, it’s most useful with things like the robotic mowers and modern irrigation systems.
Do you use social media professionally and what do you think this contributes to the industry?
The resort uses social media, and we have an Instagram (@greenkeepingSJP) which we use for members, staff and more to follow our work on the course. Everyone enjoys generating the content for this and we share pictures daily of all the different jobs we do. Please give us a follow, it’s nice to get new followers from other parts of the world!
How would you improve the greenkeeping industry?
Our setup is a little different, but I hear a lot that traditional golf courses have problems hiring and retaining good staff. I’m lucky we have owners that understand that if I’m going to present a good course and meet the higher and higher expectations of golfers, I need the right staff and enough of them.
With machinery, nutritional products and everything else becoming more expensive, there’s a risk that courses won’t be able to afford as many staff if they’re going to cover all of the other costs – but the golfer will always have the same high expectations no matter how many staff I have. That’s the challenge.
What advice would you give to a young greenkeeper starting out today?
In Sweden, it isn’t always easy to find a full-time job as a young greenkeeper, but get in where you can and then either work somewhere else over winter (many head to ski resorts!) or seek opportunities abroad if you want to stay in greenkeeping over the winter months. The Swedish Greenkeepers Association (SGA) have a good placement programme to help members find work abroad. Try and do as much education as possible, in person and online. I love when I have guys coming and asking about things they have seen on TikTok or YouTube. Every day is an opportunity to learn. If you educate yourself as best you can, there’s a good chance you’ll find your dream job in the future.
How do you spend your leisure time?
The job can be pretty demanding when the course is open, so I do enjoy a mental pause in the winter – that’s as long as the snow mould doesn’t turn up! I spend my leisure time when I get it with my seven-year-old daughter and my girlfriend, friends and family. I do a lot of sports including ice hockey and – being pretty close to the sea just outside Gotherburg – going out on our boat.