It affects more areas of life and business than we realize. When you talk to the people who mow the grass or keep the clubhouse doors open at your local golf club, you realize that the rising price of gasoline has a much bigger impact than the universal inconvenience at the pump.
Anyone who has spent five minutes online recently has stumbled across a photo of someone spending $100 to $200 filling up a car, truck or SUV. Sticker shock is shared around the world in the age of social media. But few people see the inflated price of drainpipe or the surcharges on shipments of sand and gravel. Not many people outside the golf industry see the astronomical increase in fertilizer prices or the adjustments in mowing practices as the costs of diesel fuel skyrocket.
“The cost of operating a golf course is so expensive now,” said John Stenmoen, the superintendent at Desert Island Country Club in Rancho Mirage, California, a place where gasoline is north of $6 a gallon and lines at the Costco pumps (the cheapest gas in town) snake through the park...