When I’m asked for advice on how to speak to groups, the first piece of advice I give is to know your audience. When asked for advice on how to tackle public policy problems, the first piece of advice I give is to know your adversaries’ arguments better than they know those arguments themselves; indeed, you should try to know their hearts, souls, and minds better than they know them themselves.
That’s hyperbole of the highest order; no one can know another’s mind better than he or she knows it. But they, and I hope you, get the point. It’s better to overestimate the intelligence and guile of one’s adversaries than to underestimate them. You’ll never get caught with your pants down at just the wrong moment.
So, here’s a little exercise in trying to understand the arguments of some of the game’s critics and in the process gain an appreciation of what motivates them, which more often than not involves the same high-minded things that motivate those of us in the golf industry.
First, let me share what I have come to recognize as the generic narrative that unites all of the environmental groups that pursue public policies golf finds troublesome. It goes something like this. Golf in the State of California grew to be a $13 billion enterprise of 1,000 facilities during an era of uncommonly wet and benign weather, low population, cheap water, cheap energy, massive public investments, government subsidy of municipally owned courses, low construction costs, pre-CEQA (California Environmental Quality Act) planning costs, low labor costs, unfettered access to groundwater, simple regulatory compliance, and a political ethic supportive of growth – conditions that created a market capable of bringing golf to a burgeoning middle class and expanding suburban base at a price point in sync with disposable income.
And “bring” our industry did.
But now the weather has shifted from cool and wet to hot and dry. Population is about to hit 40 million. Water and energy are expensive. Governments have lost their appetite for subsidizing municipal operations. Construction costs were rising multiples of the CPI prior to COVID; they’re exploding now. The same goes for labor costs. They were rising rapidly prior to COVID; they are exploding now. CEQA has become a nightmare for anyone venturing to build something. Groundwater is now regulated; no more stick your straw in the ground and suck up water to your heart’s content. And golf course owners/managers know better than anyone that regulatory compliance is no longer a simple task.
Add to this lethal mix the oft cited “vanishing middle class” and what you get is a market that informs golf that modernity no longer supports a $13 billion enterprise of 1,000 golf courses. “Accept this verdict” say the environmentalists. Recognize that you can’t bend these realities to suit your needs; your needs must bend to accommodate these realities. That’s what the market capitalism you claim to believe so fervently in is telling you about your capacity to meet the moment.
Tough stuff, but to the degree to which much of it is true stuff, it’s stuff that the industry has to deal with factually, strategically, creatively, and above all else, effectively. Simple denial won’t work. Neither will ad hominem attacks.
Second, let me share the narrative that has prompted an overwhelming political majority to raise wage floors so precipitously in recent years. It goes something like this. Golf and all small business enterprises benefited from a wage floor that from 1968 until just a couple of years ago glided steadily downward, leading to a disconnect between productivity and wages. Unlike previous eras in which wages moved up in sync with productivity, wages moved down while productivity went up, contributing to the “wage inequality” so many now decry as helping to eviscerate the “American dream” of upward mobility. Accept that the minimum wage needs to escalate all the way to $15, overtime thresholds have to be updated to reflect the present value of the dollar, and only the genuinely independent can be characterized as “independent contractors” say those whose politics skews leftward. Your “party” is over; it’s time for your business model to reflect a societal imperative to shrink the gap between wages and productivity.
Even tougher “stuff” than the environmental “stuff”!
Like all narratives, the two I have shared with you here are riddled with arguments and judgments amenable to contradiction by equally valid arguments and judgments. But they are solid arguments supported by equally solid facts – and can thus only be successfully challenged by arguments supported by equally verifiable facts. That is our challenge – not to talk past our detractors but to talk directly to them and the arguments, facts, and judgments they raise.
And I would submit that to the extent to which our industry has won battles in the public arena in recent years in deep Blue California, and we have won many, we have done just that – looked our detractors straight on and challenged not caricatures of their best stuff but the best of their best stuff.
Teaser alert! Details about those hard won “battles” are the subject of a future offering. Remember, I write from the bowels of Hollywood, where sequels and renewals are part of our DNA.