Reliable mowers, preventive equipment maintenance programs, and the ability to adjust to changing weather conditions help golf course superintendents keep their properties in top form.
Poor playing conditions simply won’t cut it at most golf course properties, and perhaps no maintenance task is more important than proper mowing of the course. Mowing enhances playability and ball roll, and the quality of cut affects the appearance of the golf course and plant health as well. In addition, superintendents are well aware of the direct correlation between the quality of turf and the quality of turf equipment.
SUMMING IT UP
• When selecting mowers, golf course superintendents consider a variety of features including reliability, durability, service, quality of cut, ease of operation, and fuel efficiency.
• A regular preventive maintenance program keeps mowers in top operating condition and enhances the quality of cut on the golf course.
• Factors such as turf varieties, which superintendents can control, and weather conditions, which they cannot dictate, affect mowing strategies and decisions.
“Mowing keeps the course in the condition and shape that the membership expects,” says Todd Bohn, Golf Course Superintendent at Wolf Creek Golf Club in Olathe, Kan. “We have to have quality, reliable mowers to do it. If the mowers are broken down, then we can’t do our job.”
In addition to reliability, Bohn also considers factors such as service and the availability of parts when selecting mowers. “There are a lot of options out there, so we look at reliability and ease of operation,” he explains. “We look for equipment that will help us do our jobs better.”
He also relies on recommendations from other superintendents. “We all talk,” he says. “If somebody has had success with a mower at another club, we obviously consider that.”
While fuel efficiency is an important consideration, Bohn—who expects fuel costs in the coming year to stay flat, or even decline slightly—doesn’t buy a piece of equipment just because it conserves fuel. “If it is going to do the job, be reliable and save fuel, then it is a win-win situation,” he says.
By using four-year-old hybrid mowers on the greens, Wolf Creek has decreased fuel consumption and costs. In addition, Bohn believes the hybrid mowers have a better frequency of clip.
A Full Shopping List
Buddy Tate, Golf Course Superintendent at Venetian Bay Golf Club in New Smyrna Beach, Fla., looks for mowers with durability, fuel efficiency, accessibility of parts, access to service technicians in a reasonable length of time, and ease of maintenance.
“I want to know when I take a mower out that it will come back in one piece,” he says.
At the 36-hole Marquette (Mich.) Golf Club, where equipment enjoys a long life in a short golf season, the property’s terrain influences the types of mowers that the maintenance staff relies on to keep the courses in top condition. “The majority of our equipment needs to be four-wheel or three-wheel drive, because we have a lot of hills,” reports Grounds Superintendent Craig Moore.
Ease of maintenance and operation, along with efficiency to save time and fuel, are important considerations for Moore as well.
“Equipment manufacturers are doing a great job coming out with equipment that fits the modern golf course,” he says. “The ease of maintenance with the design makes it easier to maintain golf courses on a daily basis.”
Timothy J. Strano, Certified Professional Agronomist and Golf Course Superintendent at Brae Burn Country Club in West Newton, Mass., looks for reliability, user-friendliness, and low cost of ownership when he purchases mowers for his 27-hole property. Fuel costs also play a role in his selection of mowers, which are mostly gasoline- and diesel-powered. An encouraging sign of the times is that Strano has budgeted $40,000 for fuel costs in 2015, a 10 to 12 percent decrease from recent years.
Scott Corwin, Superintendent of Golf Grounds at Renaissance Vinoy Resort & Golf Club in St. Petersburg, Fla., says his top priority in selecting mowers is service. He also looks at price or value, ease of operation, and quality of cut, but “not necessarily in that order.”
An Ounce of Prevention
Of course, having the proper equipment means little if mowers are not kept up properly, so superintendents must follow a regular preventive maintenance program to keep their fleets in top working order.
At Wolf Creek GC, the equipment technician sharpens the greens mowers daily to maintain the quality of cut. “All of the reel mowers that we use on the fairways and greens get checked every time they come back in,” reports Bohn. “The rotary mowers that we use on the rough are checked once a week, and the greasing is kept up.”
The maintenance technician at Venetian Bay checks the reel mowers, which are used on the greens, tees, and fairways, after every use. He grinds the reels once a week to keep them sharp, and changes them out every couple of years.
“A dull cut affects the ball roll and the ability for the turf to recover from disease,” notes Tate.
Venetian Bay’s technician changes the bed knives as needed, and the oil after about every 50 hours of use.
“We used to change the oil every 30 or 40 hours, but we’ve extended it to 50 hours because of tighter budgets,” Tate notes. To prevent spills, he adds, “a good maintenance technician checks the hydraulic and gas lines for leaks on a daily basis, and changes those lines every one or two years.”
As part of Marquette GC’s equipment service schedule, greens mowers are checked out daily, while fairway mowers are checked twice a week.
Brae Burn’s maintenance staff also follows a maintenance program for its equipment, to uphold the quality of cut. “The oil and fluids are changed regularly. Everything is based on engine hours,” Strano explains.
Renaissance Vinoy follows a strict preventive maintenance plan for all of its equipment, changing fluids or parts according to the equipment manufacturer’s recommendations. The club’s mechanic has best-management practices for his shop, and checks the mowers each time they come back from the golf course. All of the property’s mowers are diesel, and the property is changing from gas to electric utility vehicles this year.
Under the Weather
Fortunately, superintendents can maintain strict control over their equipment maintenance schedules. But the weather? Not so much. And sometimes they have to adjust their mowing schedules accordingly.
At Wolf Creek, Bohn notes, “The zoysia grass on the fairways is dormant all winter, so we don’t mow it until it starts growing in April or May.”
In 2014, he says, Wolf Creek’s grounds crew stopped mowing earlier in the season, because of the extreme cold blast that hit the Midwest in November. In the heat of summer, the staff also takes extra precautions during wet periods with high humidity.
“We can get scalping on the greens with the mowers, so we raise the height of the cut and put solid rollers, instead of grooved rollers, on the mowers,” Bohn explains.
The greens at Wolf Creek are generally mowed at .105 inches year-round, while the tees and fairways are mowed at ½ inch, the rough is mowed at a height of 3 inches, and the intermediate rough is mowed at 2 inches.
The Wolf Creek crew also topdresses the greens to protect the health of the putting surfaces. However, says Bohn, “The only time we really get affected by the weather is if it’s too wet or frosty. And we won’t mow if it’s real hot or the turf isn’t growing.”
Venetian Bay’s staff mows the greens at .130 inches, the tees and fairways at .625 inches, and the rough at 2 ½ inches. In warm weather, however, the staff generally mows the greens at .125 inches, and the tees and fairways at ½ inch.
“We’ll increase the height of cut on the course to help the turf better prepare for the cold,” Tate explains. “We decrease the heights in the summer, to create better playing surfaces.”
Venetian Bay has Bermuda grass throughout the golf course as well as some bahia, a relatively low-maintenance grass that can withstand drought conditions, on the periphery of the property.
“The bahia doesn’t grow as quickly as the Bermuda, so we don’t need to mow it as often,” Tate reports. “It’s rougher, and the blades aren’t as fine, so we use rotary, not reel, mowers.”
The Venetian Bay crew uses different styles of reel and rotary mowers in the rough. The staff uses zero-turn mowers in the deep rough, and reel mowers to groom its Bermuda grass more closely.
“Our course retains water better than most— when it rains, we puddle,” says Tate. “When the course is saturated, we don’t mow the greens until they dry. The fairways are a little more tolerant.”
The crew does have to be cautious, however, about putting equipment on wet turf, to avoid soil compaction.
“When it’s dry, the turf won’t grow as much,” says Tate. “If we don’t need to mow, we don’t do it. There’s no need to stress turf more than it has to be. We’ll roll greens instead of mowing them during a drought, or in the summer.”
At Brae Burn, the staff mows greens every day, and its fairways six days a week. The rest of the course is mowed three or four days a week. “We like to mow as much as possible when the turf is dry, because we get a better cut,” Strano says.
Putting Propane to the Test
The decline or stabilization of gasoline prices in recent months is good news for golf courses, but no one expects the lower prices to remain in place indefinitely. As a result, some groups are promoting the use of an alternative fuel source, to try to bring consistency to the cost of doing business in the club and resort industry.
Eight golf courses across the country have begun testing propane-powered turf equipment, through an inaugural research program with the Propane Education & Research Council (PERC), a nonprofit that provides propane safety and training programs and invests in the research and development of propane-powered technologies. The 12-month demonstration program will lease the equipment to the participating courses, which were selected for their commitment to environmentally sustainable practices.
Through the demo program, each course will receive four pieces of equipment, including a finish-cut reel mower, a five-gang fairway mower, a riding greens mower, and a utility vehicle to use throughout the trial period.
The golf courses’ personnel will record and report performance data such as reduced emissions, maintenance costs, run time, downtime, total acres mowed, and fuel savings to PERC. Data from the program will inform future R&D and commercialization efforts, as the propane industry looks to expand the use of clean, cost-effective propane to new turf-maintenance sectors.
“We want to prove to the market that what we’re telling them [about propane] is indeed true,” says Jeremy Wishart, PERC’s Deputy Director of Business Development. “Manufacturers can see that it’s here to stay, and that it’s a solution they need to consider.”
The courses were scheduled to receive their equipment between October 2014 and March of this year. The equipment manufacturer, R&R Products of Tucson, Ariz., will oversee the manufacturing, distribution, and periodic maintenance of the propane mowers, while PERC will serve as a resource in helping the courses establish relationships with local propane providers. Audubon International, which recommended six of the eight participating courses for the program, will assist in evaluating the program’s effect on overall sustainability efforts.
The participating properties are Stone Mountain (Ga.) Golf Club; Fernandina Beach (Fla.) Golf Club; Marriott Desert Springs, Palm Desert, Calif.; Renaissance Vinoy Resort & Golf Club, St. Petersburg, Fla.; Columbus (Ohio) Municipal Golf Courses; Reston (Va.) National Golf Course; George W. Dunne National, Oak Forest, Ill.; and Willows Run Golf Course, Redmond, Wash. Each of the courses is Audubon International-certified, or in the process of completing its certification.
Renaissance Vinoy, scheduled to get its equipment in January 2015, will keep the mowers for a year. “We can use them as we see fit,” says Superintendent of Golf Grounds Scott Corwin. “We’re always trying to go green, and propane is a lot cleaner. Propane burns cleaner than gasoline, and it will reduce our carbon footprint.”
Propane is also safer to handle than diesel or gas, Corwin adds, because it is not as combustible. “Working with fuel is one of the most dangerous things we do all day,” he notes.
Corwin’s staff will compare the propane-powered fairway unit, which will be the sixth in Renaissance Vinoy’s fleet, to its diesel units. At the end of the year, Corwin notes, the property will have an attractive buy-out opportunity “if the program goes well.”
“It’s an alternative,” he says of propane. “If it’s feasible as another alternative to operate equipment, people will use it.”
Wishart expects to collect qualitative and quantitative data from the participating golf courses on a quarterly basis. Emissions reductions and fuel-cost savings are the primary advantages of using propane, he believes. Emissions reductions from the propane equipment can range from 15 percent to 40 percent, he reports, while the use of propane equipment will result in cost savings of 25 percent to 30 percent compared to gasoline mowers, and 53 percent compared to diesel equipment.
“The pricing volatility for your fuel makes it hard to plan going forward,” Wishart states. “With a propane dealer, you can lock into a fixed price for a couple of weeks, a month, or a year.”
In addition, he reports, the costs to make traditional fuels cleaner will ultimately be passed along from the manufacturers to the end users.
And propane is not just a viable option for golf course maintenance, according to Wishart. From food and beverage operations to linen services, properties also can use propane in their clubhouse operations for cooking or cleaning, he suggests. “That’s a huge message that’s going to resonate over time with this market,” Wishart believes.
Sometimes, however, crew members have to mow while dew is still on the ground to accommodate play; when this happens, they use mower attachments to remove the moisture.
The Brae Burn crew typically mows the velvet bentgrass greens at 1/10 of an inch and the tees and fairways, which are a mix of fine fescue and creeping bluegrass, at 3/8 to ½ inch.
The Renaissance Vinoy staff mows its greens daily, tees and fairways three times a week, and the rough twice a week. During non-peak times, however, the crew mows less frequently.
“We scale back our mowing throughout the year, depending on the weather or the growth of the grass. We use growth regulators to slow the turf down,” says Corwin. “The grass tells you when it wants to be mowed.”
During the winter, the staff will alternate between mowing and rolling the greens each day.
The height of cut is kept consistent at Renaissance Vinoy year-round, with greens mowed at .120 inches, tees and fairways at .400 inches, and the rough at three-quarters of an inch.
By Design
Other factors such as turf varieties—which, unlike weather, superintendents can influence—dictate mowing strategies as well.
Wolf Creek has bentgrass greens, zoysia on the fairways and tees, and a blend of fescue and bluegrass in the rough.
“Having warm-season and cool-season grasses on the same golf course, we have to mow totally different,” states Bohn. “It’s more the playability than the grass that dictates how we mow. There are a lot of low handicaps among our members, so our number-one priority is to have fast, firm greens as much as possible.”
To maintain those conditions, the Wolf Creek staff walk-mows its greens.
“We walk-mow because I feel it gives the greens a better cut,” Bohn explains. “They tend to roll better. We’re a high-end private club, and our membership demands the best conditions.”
While the Wolf Creek staff generally mows the holes in sequence, the crew works in sections on some parts of the course. For example, the third, eighth, and fifth greens will be mowed together, because of their close proximity to each other.
Marquette GC has bentgrass on the greens and tees, and a mix of fine fescue and bluegrass in the fairways on its Greywalls course, which opened in 2005. The fairways on the Heritage course, which opened as a nine-hole course in 1926 and added nine more holes in 1969, includes several varieties of grass in its fairways.
The Marquette crew mows the Heritage fairways three times a week, and the staff mows the newer grass varieties on the Greywalls fairways twice a week. During the season, the maintenance staff mows the greens every day. However, the crew rolls the greens at the end of the season, when the grass isn’t growing as much.
The Marquette staff keeps its greens at .125 inches and the fairways at .625 inches. The crew mows the tees, surrounds, and approaches at .400 inches. “I don’t mess around with heights,” says Moore. “We don’t mow low during the season. I don’t see any benefit to it. We get plenty of ball roll.”
The Marquette staff members also change patterns each time they mow. They stripe the turf with an angled cut earlier in the week, when they have more time to spend on mowing. When the crew is busy getting ready for the weekend on Fridays, the staff members often mow the tees and fairways with a shaded, or half-and-half, look.
At Renaissance Vinoy, the grounds crew typically mows the holes in sequence. “We have enough mowers and manpower to stay ahead of play,” notes Corwin.
The staff also uses a shaded pattern on the golf course, but alternates the direction each time it mows. “This saves time, fuel and productivity,” Corwin explains. “In today’s business environment, it’s all about productivity.
“In the past few years, we’ve had to do more with less,” he adds. “We have to find more ways for productivity to get better and for costs to be lower, but still keep up the quality of the course.”
Renaissance Vinoy has TifEagle Bermuda on its greens and 419 Bermuda on the rest of the course. However, the property is experimenting with salt-tolerant diamond zoysia on its 12,000-sq. ft. practice green, to get a feel for different textures and looks.
“You have to have a mowing program that keeps your golf course in top shape all the time,” says Corwin. “We want our members and guests to enjoy themselves and have a good round of golf. We want them to be able to find their balls and to get better lies.”
The grounds crew at Venetian Bay, which has 156 acres of maintained turf, mows the greens daily. The staff members mow the tees and fairways three times a week during the busy season, and try to mow the rough two times a week during the season. “The greens are a priority,” notes Tate.
With four acres of greens on an 18-hole course, the Venetian Bay crew ride-mows its greens because of staffing and budgetary issues. The holes on the course are typically mowed in order, but the staff may change the sequence when a tournament or an outing is scheduled.
“We have to stay in constant communication with the pro shop,” Tate reports. “We do whatever we need to do to stay ahead of play.”
The Venetian Bay staff mows all of the surfaces on the course according to a clock face. Crew members might mow a surface from 12 o’clock to 6 o’clock one day, and from 3 o’clock to 9 o’clock the next.
“We change it daily. We vary the pattern to keep from getting grain in the grass,” Tate explains.
Brae Burn’s maintenance staff also changes its mowing direction each day according to the face of a clock, but the course maintains a checkerboard pattern. In addition, crew members mow the golf holes in a logistically feasible sequence.
“A lot of the fuel costs are from having to travel from one side of the course to another, so we try to keep travel distances to a minimum,” says Strano.
The Brae Burn staff also walk-mows its greens, because Strano believes it is better for the turf. “After all of the agronomics and cultivation has been done,” he says, “it comes down to the quality of cut.”
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