Over the past few days Mother Nature has transformed the grounds of HP to a winter wonderland. Timing is everything! The snow will form an excellent insulating blanket to protect the Zoysia against the record breaking lows that will be seen in the next few days. Thus far, the Zoysia fairways and new sod look very healthy, the spring transition will tell the entire story of turf health.
The staff continues to focus on:
- Facilty enchancements
- Golf course accessories refurbishing
- Health and Safety programs
- Staff recruitment
- Horticulture designs
Some of the most important off- season tasks are data interpretation and evaluation. We look at past years programs including: staff recruitment and training initiatives to fertilizer, pesticide and moisture management programs. The staff and I collaborate, to fine tune many of these programs to improve efficiency, add value and improve playability.
With over a hundred of specialized pieces of equipment, the preventative maintenance program takes Bobby the Equipment Manager and the grounds staff about 4 months to go through the entire fleet. During this process Bob tracks costs on material, labor and other details that help with future equipment purchases.
Bob does an excellent job with data collection. A great example was noted the other day. We have been using the same triplex mower to mow the driving range tee for 11 years with excellent results.The mower was built in 1986 and was purchased used for $500.00 and in the 11 years we have owned it we have put in roughly 400.00 in parts. This mower sees about 65 hours per season strictly mowing the range tee and plenty of sand from divot mix. Using older equipment on other areas would be a problem with the hours used, high impact areas and loss of efficiency. However, this piece work exceptionally well for this area. This mower will not last forever but we know in the future that a used piece will work well.
Sharp cutting units ready for action in 2015
Walk behind mower board- quick reference
Bob has also developed a Walk Behind mower board for quick reference, that outlines mower type, Height of cut and most importantly it tracks the number of times each mower has been sharpened. We have found that the quality of cut on the turf can vary drastically after the third sharpening. Quality of cut has a major effect on putting quality and ball roll distance.
Spring is not far away! If there are questions please email us @grounds@hydeparkcc.com.
Regards,
Pat O'Brien
Grounds Superintendent
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