Tuesday, January 30, 2018

What we do in the winter

Here in the golf course maintenance department we get asked this question a lot. I thought I would update you on a few items that we are currently working on and how things look.

We had great snow cover on the turf during the periods of extremely cold temperatures. We were very thankful for that and also I am very glad that we made the decision to irrigate the turf in late December. I had an opportunity to tour the golf course late last week and the turf at this midway point looks to be in very good condition.


Now to the inside of the golf course maintenance facility. Blake Helland our equipment tech has been extremely busy working on every piece of equipment that we have. Blake's job is to bring each item in and service it. Very similar to taking your vehicle in for a oil change. Blake also inspects the units at this time and repairs any safety items, fixes any mechanical items that need attention. This could be a 3 hour time on one item and the next item might take several days.

Superintendent's Nate Tegtmeier and Mitch Meyers along with 1st assistant Craig Connell are busy finishing up the reel grinding and re-assembly of the units. Once this is completed they have to attach them back to the mowers. They have over 70 mowing units to do this to. Bearings are checked and replaced. Reels and bedknives are ground to manufacturer's specifications and then they are ready to go. Here in these photos the guys are working on the John Deere fairway mowing units. This is a critical step to make sure everything is in proper alignment and ready for the upcoming mowing season.



Rueben is very busy painting in our paint booth. All ballwashers, stands, garbage containers, rope stakes, driving range bag stands are sanded then Rueben paints them. Pedro, Jeff and Axel do the prep work and then they do the assembling of the items to have them ready to go. They look like new once they are completed.




Tanner, Zach, Arturo, Enrique and Rueben are also busy in the wood working shop. They are very busy making new tee markers, fixing and finishing divot boxes, all rope posts and red stakes.

In these photos Tanner is taking off the finish from last year and then Zach sands the posts.



The wooden posts or tee marker is then handed off to Arturo and Rueben to have the grooves routed in them and a final sanding.


Once this is done then Enrique brands our logo into the item and it comes over to the main shop to be stained/painted and finished.


These guys have been doing it this way for many years. They have to be well organized and ready to go so each step is completed on time. I think they do a wonderful job of doing that.

Nate, Mitch and myself have also been very busy working on chemical orders, fertilizer orders, and flower bed design and ordering. Jeff M. has been inventorying all of our equipment and updating our data base so that all items are recorded along with serial numbers and model numbers. Once this is done Jeff has the dubious task of working on the Safety Data Sheets and updating them for every product that we use in our department.

All of this work takes a lot of time. The guys also take much needed time off so that they are ready for another season.