Wildly fluctuating gas prices have forced golf course superintendents to implement simple, yet creative, new ways to conserve energy.
Increased worldwide demand for oil—along with the havoc on production wreaked by hurricanes such as Katrina, Gustav and Ike—has kept gasoline prices on a dizzying roller coaster ride in recent years that always seems to climb back up to record new heights. But savvy golf course superintendents have tired of the sick feelings that these less-than-thrilling fluctuations can bring, and taken it on themselves to find new, long-term solutions for smoothing out the up-and-down costs of fueling their fleets of maintenance equipment.
Little Things Mean A Lot
Jim Pitman, Certified Golf Course Superintendent and Director of Golf Facilities Operations at Rolling Hills Country Club in Rolling Hills Estates, Calif., says his property has earned significant savings by doing a number of “little things” to keep fuel consumption in check.
The process started with changes in maintenance equipment. Rolling Hills is cutting its fleet of gas and diesel maintenance vehicles in favor of lightweight electric utility vehicles.
The crew maximizes the function of the lightweight electric vehicles by using them to perform site-specific tasks. “They’re not running all day,” Pitman says.
SUMMING IT UP
• Reducing fuel consumption has environmental and cost-saving benefits.• Scheduling staff time and routine maintenance tasks more efficiently saves labor and contributes to a property’s fuel economy. • Superintendents have found that course conditions do not suffer as a result of fuel conservation efforts. |
In addition to curtailing fuel consumption, the electric vehicles also make less noise than their gasoline-powered counterparts—an important consideration for early-morning jobs at Rolling Hills, where three or four holes are surrounded by homes.
The property, located 18 miles south of Los Angeles, is also acquiring utility trailers that can transport two mowers instead of one. The new equipment enables the crew to take one vehicle rather than two out on the course, to carry what’s needed for the everyday walk-mowing of its greens and tees.
Pitman says the crew now also stores some of its equipment on-site in the irrigation building, reducing the number of longer trips the equipment must make to and from the primary maintenance facility.
Rolling Hills has also cut back on its use of fertilizer, which often includes petroleum products in the composition. As a result, the property has reduced its fertilizer and water costs by about 25 percent. “That’s reduced our fuel [consumption], because we’re not mowing as much,” Pitman explains. “And when we’re mowing and growing, we come right behind, cutting and harvesting.”
In addition, he says, “We’re using cheaper products such as iron sulfates to speed up the chlorophyll process. The grass is getting greener without the growth. This enhances the condition of the turf, but we’re not feeding the turf.”
Rich Harvest Farms uses eco-friendly biodiesel fuel, which costs about the same as regular fuel and earns tax breaks for the club. |
The property has been working toward these cost-saving measures for the last eight or nine years, Pitman reports, but he has been tracking the savings more carefully in the last four or five years. He expects to end 2009 under his fuel budget of $48,000, because the line item was based on numbers from last year, when fuel prices were higher.
But even with lower costs, he stresses, the key to staying within the budget is “to be as conservative as possible.” The golf course maintenance field, he adds, is like any other business that must strive to increase productivity without raising expenses.
“We’re always looking for ways to be more efficient and more effective with our resources,” he notes. “We’ve been made very consciously aware that fuel prices are something that can be a yo-yo.”
Pitman expects more savings to come from future changes that will be made to the golf course in the next couple of years. Arnold Palmer is serving as architect for a redesign that will make Rolling Hills’ course even more maintenance-friendly, through irrigation improvements that will feature more site-specific water applications, a four- to six-inch coating of sand on the fairways and rough to reduce wear and tear, and a combination of well water and potable water. All of these improvements should result in reduced fuel consumption and other savings, Pitman feels.
Becoming Less Fuelis
A number of maintenance practices can help golf course properties reduce fuel consumption. They include: |
“Golf course maintenance is not an exact science,” he adds. “It’s a learning process.” Most importantly, course conditions have never suffered as a result of the new maintenance practices that have been driven by rising fuel costs. In fact, he notes, “Golfers have said the golf course is in the best shape it’s ever been in.”
Quality Counts
Biltmore Country Club, in North Barrington, Ill., has realized similar benefits from energy cost-saving measures it has instituted in response to price fluctuations.
The club’s maintenance crew has cut back its fuel consumption by reducing the number of times it mows the fairways from three times a week to twice a week. “We use growth regulators to keep the grass from growing as fast,” reports Certified Golf Course Superintendent Brian Thomson.
The property made this change two years ago, and the practice has resulted in a fuel savings of 15 to 20 percent. “We continued the process because it worked so well last year, and we didn’t see a drop in the quality of the fairways,” Thomson adds.
The Biltmore CC superintendent also keeps his maintenance fleet in fuel-conserving, peak-performance condition—a practice that begins in the shop with a color-coded storage and dispensation system for equipment fluids. Ten steel storage tanks—containing fluids ranging from motor oil, hydraulic fluid and antifreeze—are mounted on the wall to open up valuable floor real estate.
“We were looking for different ways to store materials and save space,” Thomson explains.
Some courses conserve fuel by reducing mowing frequency, using utility trailers to transport two mowers, or taking lunch breaks on the course, rather than driving back to the maintenance building. |
A hose connects each tank to a color-coded, labeled ball valve in the maintenance area below, and fluids are gravity-fed to the valves and dispensed to a similarly colored oil container that matches a color-coded dipstick on each piece of equipment. The overhead storage tanks also include clear tubes on the outside, so fluid levels can be monitored. This system reduces the potentially costly chances that pieces of equipment will be filled with improper fluids.
“It saves time, and it’s a little more organized. It also protects equipment from being damaged,” Thomson notes.
The property also has cut its heating costs in the maintenance shop in half, by using recycled waste oil in a ceiling-mounted used oil furnace. “The waste oils are a supplement to our normal heating system,” adds Thomson.
Changing Their Stripes
Woodhill Country Club in Wayzata, Minn., installed GPS units on equipment at various intervals during the year, to track the fuel efficiency of its maintenance and mowing practices.
Calling their findings “one of those ‘V-8 moments,’ ” Certified Golf Course Superintendent Rick Fredericksen reports that fuel consumption has been reduced by 10 to 15 percent because of what the study found.
“We did change some of our mowing routes as a result,” he adds. “A lot of it was probably just common sense.”
The crew now mows holes according to their proximity to each other, rather than consecutively from one through nine and 10 through 18. In addition, says Fredericksen, “Everything got striped in the past.” Now, however, the crew mows according to a “Zamboni pattern”—mowing half the turf in one direction, and the rest in the opposite direction.
“We made most of the changes in June, and we could see the benefits coming in July,” Fredericksen notes.
Somerset Country Club in Mendota Heights, Minn., near St. Paul, was also involved in the GPS study. While full results aren’t in yet for either facility, Somerset’s Golf Course Superintendent, James Bade, has also already seen enough to make similar adjustments to those made at Woodhill.
“We don’t stripe the fairways all the time,” he explains. “We try to do less turning, and [we found that] it takes a lot of energy to raise your reels.”
Somerset also used the GPS devices when it aerated its greens in the spring, and Bade was surprised to discover that his crew put more than 100 miles on the equipment that was outfitted with the GPS tracking devices.
“We’ve been tracking our fuel on certain equipment for a bunch of years, but never with GPS,” he notes.
Somerset’s maintenance staff also conserves fuel by using plant-growth regulators to reduce mowing frequency, and through the use of electric utility carts. Bade and his assistant have electric carts, and the property might add a third electric vehicle to its maintenance fleet.
Going Biodiesel
Rich Harvest Farms, a course in Sugar Grove, Ill. that hosted the Solheim Cup this past August, started using biodiesel fuel, which is more environmentally sound than regular gasoline, earlier this year.
“It costs about the same as regular fuel, but we get Illinois tax breaks for the use of biodiesel,” notes the club’s Golf Course Superintendent, Jeff VerCautren.
The property has not experienced any equipment problems from its use of biodiesel. “There have been no ill effects with the filters or any of the equipment. There hasn’t been one issue,” VerCautren says.
Like other properties, Rich Harvest Farms has also cut back on its fertilizer use. “I only put fertilizer in our rough, which is our biggest acreage, once a year, and it’s a slow release,” reports VerCautren.
In addition, he says, the property also has GPS devices on its sprayers for the fairways and tees, which offers the benefit of pinpoint accuracy and eliminates application overlap into the rough. With GPS capability in each individual nozzle control, he reports, the property will save about $30,000, or 10 percent, on chemicals and fertilizer this year.
Rich Harvest Farms’ maintenance crew has increased its efficiency—and saved fuel consumption in the process—in other ways as well.
“Our staff has elected to not take a lunch throughout the day; they take a 15-minute break out in the field instead,” VerCautren says. Eliminating a half-hour of transportation time to and from the maintenance shop for the 50 people on the staff has multiplied quickly into savings of fuel and time.
“In general, you can really tell that we got a lot more done this year,” reveals VerCautren.
The property has also been reducing its inventory of gasoline-powered equipment, purchasing new electric maintenance vehicles at a rate of about two a year for the last four years. Electric vehicles now make up about 25 percent of the property’s utility car fleet, and Rich Harvest Farms has had electric rollers—which are more efficient and considerably quieter than gasoline rollers—for two years.
“We’re trying to phase out any gasoline purchases altogether,” VerCautren says.
The electric utility carts were put to the test during the long days of the Solheim Cup competition, he adds, and proved to be more than up to the task.
“All of the carts lasted at least 10 hours, and most closer to 12 hours,” he reports.
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