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Government cracks down on compensating course volunteers with free golf By Garry Smits Fri, Mar 2, 2012 @ 6:23 pm 1 updated Fri, Mar 2, 2012 @ 6:56 pm If the message wasn't received seven years ago when the Cimarrone Golf Club was ordered to pay back wages to starters and rangers who were compensated with free rounds of golf instead of pay, it might be coming through since the Golf Club of Fleming Island had to pay more than $73,000 to 19 people last November. "It's the law, and the government is enforcing it," said Jack Aschenbach, president of the Northern Chapter PGA, the governing body for golf club professionals. "We've all got to come into compliance." The practice of paying golf course employees with free rounds of golf has always been illegal according to Michael Young, the Jacksonville district director for the Labor Department's division of Wage and Hours. In -kind services can be paid only for volunteering at charity tournaments or for nonprofit facilities, such as The First Tee. "Golf courses are not nonprofits," Young said. With the news of Fleming Island's situation, other area course owners and operators have been scrambling to end the practice and are fearful of further investigations. "Obviously, everyone has heard about Fleming Island, and I doubt if anyone is still paying people with free rounds," said one golf course general manager, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the possibility of a future investigation. "We've changed our policy. But the government can still go back two years on this." Three, if clubs don't cooperate, Young said. Cimarrone had to pay nearly $14,000 to 24 employees in 2005. Other management companies and golf courses have been caught in similar situations going back even further. "The laws are really nothing new," said Hampton Golf president M.G. Orender, whose courses his company manages have been in compliance with the law since it was founded in 1999. "It's a payroll [issue], but it's also a liability issue. Both the employee and employer are protected by workman's compensation. I hate to think of the issues if someone working at a golf course outside those bounds was injured on the course." But the practice is still so commonplace that a Google search of "golf course volunteers" still turns up websites for courses that openly advertise free rounds of golf for volunteers. Courses in Boca Raton and Largo in Florida are examples. So is the Seminole Golf Course in 15