Partner Snapshot 

Cedar Hill Country Club is a private, member-owned golf course in Livingston, New Jersey. Its membership takes great pride in the course, which boasts a picturesque setting of newly renovated holes, bunkers, and tee boxes, and the addition of a state-of-the-art practice facility. 

Challenging in its range of slopes, bunkers, and water features, Cedar Hill’s golf course feature mainly bent grass and poa, with tees and fairways a mixture of bluegrass, ryegrass, and fescue in the rough. The club was founded in 1921 and continues to focus on hospitality, building relationships, and offering a fantastic all-around private club experience. 

The Challenge 

Over the years, Cedar Hill’s on-site caddie program had declined in both quality and member usage. What’s more, the club’s board was concerned about lawsuits that had been popping up involving caddies and golf clubs, and they wanted to stay ahead of the trend. In 2022, management and the club’s board of directors began seeking solutions to two main challenges: 

1. Overall deterioration of caddie quality and a resulting reduction in golfers taking caddies. 

2. Constantly changing state and federal labor laws regarding independent contractor misclassification along with defining the role caddies play at the club (whether they’re independent contractors or employees). 

The Solution 

Decision-makers opted to work with CaddieNow, as it was the best fit for Cedar Hill Country Club, both in terms of cost and overall relationship. CaddieNow builds a partnership with clients, rather than a hands-off approach 

The partnership’s goal was to help address challenges and better support the club’s caddie manager in recruiting, training, caddie engagement, professionalism, and hospitality. They opted for the CaddieGuard solution, part of the company’s overall CaddieSuite, which offers a combination of club indemnification, HR services, robust caddie training, and software. 

The Results 

Caddie Recruitment 

In the spring of 2022, CaddieNow recruited and trained over 100 new caddies for Cedar Hill. In fact, so many new, eager caddies came on board March through July that nearly 50 new caddies were put on a wait list for future openings. This ensured that the workload of existing, highly qualified caddies already serving members wouldn’t be affected. 

Caddie Management & Professionalism 

CaddieNow worked closely with Cedar Hill’s caddie services manager to develop additional processes and procedures to better manage the club’s pool of independent contract caddies. Historically, caddies were assigned loops the night before they were requested, with little to no input on their work choices. By utilizing CaddieNow’s caddie management platform, the caddie services manager now had the ability to send caddies their loop opportunities in advance. The platform combines intuitive software with an app where caddies can manage their loop requests ahead of time and accept or decline rounds and golfers can choose and rate their preferred caddies. 

Beyond tracking caddie requests and acceptances, CaddieNow’s technology also processes payments, records golfer and caddie ratings, and collects post-round feedback, improving the overall professionalism of the caddie pool. 

Protection & Indemnification 

In addition to the oversight and choice/options created for caddies, golf staff, and members, CaddieGuard also provides umbrella protection for the club and individual caddies: 

• Cedar Hill is protected from employee misclassification and wage and hour risk via CaddieGuard’s indemnification provision, along with a key feature in the technology platform that tracks all caddie loops, time on property, and recordable wages to ensure they meet state and federal minimum wage requirements. 

• Caddies are protected for personal injury claims through an Occupational Accident insurance policy, meaning caddies are no longer exposed to that risk when an injury or major illness strikes them while working at the club. 

Golf clubs have been faced with legal proceedings related to caddies over the last several years, making protection of utmost importance in this partnership. “Our caddie service manager worked closely with the CaddieNow team daily,” Rod says. “Not only to rebuild our caddie program, but follow the processes required to keep caddies as independent contractors and protect the club from the lawsuits and challenges we have been seeing all around the Northeast in recent years.”