Following best practices for fairway mowing can not only improve golf course aesthetics and playability, but curb costs and save time as well.
Even though the Rules of Golf offer no official definition of “fairway,” superintendents are well aware of the importance of the closely mowed area between the tee box and the putting green to overall course conditions.
With newer, lightweight fairway mowers, golf course maintenance professionals have made great strides in their efforts to tend to fairway turf. They no longer have to rely on large tractors and pull-behind reel mowers (not to mention the horse-drawn fairway mowers of the early 20th century). And just as their equipment has changed, so, too, have their methods.
“We’re mowing tighter and tighter,” says Certified Golf Course Superintendent Pete Wendt, Director of Golf Course Operations at Kinloch Golf Club in Manakin-Sabot, Va., who has worked in the golf course maintenance business for 20-plus years. “As superintendents, we are always pushing the limits to see how we can get a better ball lie in the fairways and how we can get more ball roll and firmness.”
SUMMING IT UP
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Many Patterns to Choose From
From stripes and diamonds to two-toned effects, golf courses can now choose from a number of mowing-produced fairway looks to improve aesthetics and playability.
The Kinloch maintenance staff typically mows its creeping bentgrass fairways two times a week. “We burn the fairway lines in two directions,” notes Wendt. “I think the members like the striped look on the fairways. It suits the golf course from an aesthetic standpoint.”
During the golf season, the maintenance crew mows the fairways at a height of .250 to .300 inches.
“We do a lot of grooming and verticutting to maintain tightness and health,” adds Wendt, who has worked at Kinloch for almost 14 years. “We spray them with paclobutrazol growth regulator, typically every two weeks. We’ve been doing that forever.”
These types of growth regulators not only help decrease mowing labor and promote lateral rather than vertical growth, they also help fight off poa annua.
The Kinloch property includes about 110 acres of rough made up of tall fescue and bluegrass. In addition, notes Wendt, an 84-inch-wide intermediate cut, which features a mix of bluegrass and rye grass, provides a nice transition from fairway to primary rough.
Diamonds from the Rough
The maintenance staff at Saint Croix National Golf Club in Somerset, Wis., mows its bluegrass fairways on Monday, Wednesday and Friday each week, using a diagonal cut to create an aesthetically pleasing diamond pattern.
“It doesn’t lay the grass down as much as it would if you followed the same pattern,” reports Grounds Superintendent Ryan Gauster. “It keeps the grass upright and gives the ball a better roll.”
The Saint Croix crew cuts the fairways at 5/8-inch with its two lightweight mowers. “Anything shorter would dry out the bluegrass, and the ball lie wouldn’t be as good if it were any longer,” Gauster explains.
At Bear Slide Golf Club in Cicero, Ind., staff reductions and budget cuts forced Head Superintendent Chris Thuer, CGCS, to change mowing practices several years ago.
While the public, 18-hole property used to stripe its bentgrass fairways, Thuer decided to go back to mowing them in a half-and-half pattern, in which one side of the fairway looks dark and the grass on the other side appears light. “When I first started working in the business in 1980 with larger mowers, we mowed in a half-and-half pattern,” he explains.
He also recalled that the maintenance staff of Crooked Stick Golf Club, in Carmel, Ind., mowed its fairways in the same dark-light pattern when he helped out with the U.S. Women’s Amateur Championship at that property in 2007.
“We were trying to find ways to save time anywhere we could,” says Thuer, who has been at Bear Slide since 2002.
And the “new” technique did just that. By cutting the fairways in the half-and-half pattern, the staff reduced its mowing time by 25 percent. As a result, the maintenance crew also uses 25 percent less fuel, and has reduced the wear and tear on its two fairway mowers by 25 percent.
With this circle-cut method, one operator starts in the middle and works his way out. The other operator circles around the perimeter and works his way toward the middle of the fairway. The end result is a line down the middle of the fairway, to create the two-toned appearance.
To identify the middle more easily, the Bear Slide staff has painted a white hash mark about 6 to 10 inches long, as well as white dots at 10-yard intervals, down the center of each fairway. The crew members touch up the dots every other week.
“It can be hard to see the center line if there’s a heavy dew or if it’s dark,” Thuer says. “All of our customers know why the marks are there, and we haven’t had any complaints.”
Going Against the Grain
The Bear Slide maintenance staff originally cut the grass in the same direction the first month it started mowing in the half-and-half pattern. However, Thuer quickly realized that the grass was getting grainy and laying over in one direction, so he made another adjustment.
“We switch directions every week. We try not to lay the grass down too much in one direction or the other,” he reports.
While many golfers believe that hitting to the light side of the fairway is down-grain and increases ball roll, a regular rotation of the half-and-half mowing directions improves playability by creating less grain and more upright turf.
Other advantages to the half-light/half-dark pattern include decreased wear and tear around bunkers where mowers need to turn, and minimal turning in the rough, which results in a better quality turf.
In addition, notes Thuer, the classic, traditional look of the Euro-style cut offers aesthetic appeal and suits the links-style golf course.
The Bear Slide crew generally mows the holes in numerical order because of the golf course’s layout. However, the crew, which cuts the fairways at a height of 7/16-inch, has decreased its fairway mowing routine from a Monday-Wednesday-Friday schedule, to now mowing two days a week, on Tuesday and Friday. The property, which has a lot of heather and natural turf on the golf course, also decreased the amount of rough it maintains with a 10-acre increase in natural areas.
“We had to look at all areas of the operation to reduce maintenance costs,” adds Thuer.
Cross-training is also a big part of golf course maintenance at Bear Slide, so different crew members mow the fairways each week.
“Because our staff is small, everybody eventually gets trained to do every job,” notes Thuer. “We don’t do the same thing every day.”
At Kinloch GC, fairway mowing is done early in the morning, with half of the six mowers mowing the front nine and the other half cutting the back nine. The same crew members mow the same nines each time, and they will “leapfrog” holes to save time and increase efficiency. The mowers also include baskets, and the crew members spread the clippings along the woodlines of the fairways.
Equipment’s Key Roles
Of course, golf course maintenance is only as good as a property’s equipment. In addition to the baskets, other features that Wendt looks for in fairway mowers include reels with electric drives, to reduce the number of hydraulic lines and the potential for leaks; quality of cut; groomers; and a light footprint.
The fairway mowers that the Kinloch crew members have used for the past three or four seasons have an 80-inch width-of-cut, an increase over the 62-inch width provided by the triplex mowers they previously used.
At Kinloch, technician Brian Callery makes sure the mowers’ reels are sharpened and ground, and his checklist includes examining the bedknives and reels as well as the height and quality of cut, to make sure the fairway mowers operate in proper working order. “Our technician is the most important team member on the property,” says Wendt.
At Saint Croix, Gauster finds that the four-wheel-drive feature of the mowers used at that club helps the staff handle the banks and hills of the 18-hole golf course.
Bear Slide, which got its first electric-reel hydraulic greens mower this year, might turn to electric fairway mowers in the future. According to Thuer, however, budget constraints have delayed the turnover of his equipment fleet. To maintain the fairway mowers, a technician backlaps and adjusts them every other week, and frequently checks the quality of cut.
Like every other aspect of golf course maintenance, however, fairway mowing is another facet of course conditioning that continues to evolve.
“Superintendents are always looking for a better way to do things,” says Wendt. “Expectations are definitely getting higher.”
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