February 2012

Winter work progresses at the golf course maintenance building with a large emphasis in the next few months on inspection, rebuilding, and spin grinding of mower reels to prepare for the 2012 season. This process includes:

• Removing and cleaning cutting units from all of our reel mowers. Our green, fairway, and tee mowers all use reel type cutting units and we have a total of 47 reels in our inventory.
• Reels are inspected and bearings are replaced on reels that have higher hours on them.
• Once these processes are complete, both the reels and bedknives are sharpened using grinding equipment.
• Reels are assembled and adjusted.

The following page from a Toro service manual should be helpful in explaining the basic principles of the reel mower:

Golf course equipment has come a long ways in the past 100 years. For your viewing enjoyment, I have a link to some photographs from the past that show you just how much things have changed over the years:

http://turf-tec.com/History-1.html

I cannot imagine some of the difficulties-especially in the area of employee safety-that old school greenkeepers must have dealt with. Interesting stuff.

Have a great February, Grounds Department

Vincent Dodge CGCS