What do we do in the winter?

I am asked this question almost weekly during the winter season. My first response is that we only work 40 hours a week. Here at the club we have 16 people on staff during the winter season. This may seem like a lot of staff people but I can assure you it takes us all winter to get the equipment ready to go for the next season.

I would like to highlight just a few of the things that happen in our area of the Country Club. Obviously we have a full time mechanic who works on our equipment. We have just over $1.9 million worth of equipment that he is responsible for. First thing that happens to this equipment is to bring it in and do a complete and through cleaning of it. It takes many weeks to get all of the equipment clean before the mechanic starts to work on it. If it is not clean, then you can not see oil leaks, worn parts or cracks in the metal. All of our cleaning happens in our wash bay.

This is one of the mechanics main areas. He has 2 lifts to get equipment up in the air so he can work on it properly. He also has an overhead lift to help assist him in his daily work.

Our next area is the Grinding Room. We have 2 staff members that spend their winter in this room taking apart all of the reel mowers. They replace worn out bearings and seals, then the units are sharpened and set up for the next season. It takes them almost 2 full months to get through all of our units.

All of the wood products are handled in a different fashion. We have a woodworking area set up during the winter where a couple of staff members sand, varnish, brand our logo on the wooden products to make them look new again. They take care of all of the red stakes, the cart directional stakes, the tee markers and the signs in the club house parking lot.

All of the metal bench ends, ball washers, ball washer stands, trash receptacles, etc. come to a completely different area. Here the parts are sand blasted and most of the paint is removed and prepped for painting to make it all look new and shiny.

We also have a couple of staff members who work on updating irrigation drawings, managing inventories and making new signs and plaques. We also spend a lot of time ordering new products for next year, writing our fertilizer and plant protection programs. Some of us attend yearly education for our licensing. The last item is the biggest item for us. If it snows all of the above items are dropped and we all head over and take care of snow removal around the entire club area and around the tennis dome.