Good Morning,
This past week I started working on some of the smaller equipment repairs in the shop. Our older fairway units had several rollers with some slight bearing damage. This process consists of removing the old seals and bearings out of each end of the roller. The next step will be to install new seals and bearings in each roller.
There is a front and rear roller on each reel. The rollers allow the mower reel to provide a uniform cut of the turfgrass. If a roller has a damaged bearing it will not provide a consistent mowing pattern across whatever surface of turfgrass it is designed to maintain. The roller is a significant factor when it comes to mowing turfgrass, the smallest fault can create a poor mowing pattern. Below is a picture of a repaired rear roller and a damaged roller:
repaired roller.jpg
damaged roller.jpg
Each end of the roller has a seal, bearing and race, and another seal which holds everything in place and allows the mower to create a uniform mowing pattern across the surface of the turf. There is no margin for inconsistencies when you are mowing greens at 1/8 of an inch or fairways at 3/10 of an inch. The slightest imperfection becomes an immediate problem to the quality of the playing surface.
I completed the five year capital improvement plan which will go to the city council Monday evening for approval. The past year has been very difficult to acquire turf equipment. Anything the distributors don’t have on hand is over 12-15 months out for delivery. Our rental carts were ordered in March of 2021 and are scheduled to go to build in March of 2022. Delivery is still undetermined. I have been networking and researching to do my best to meet our maintenance needs.
A big part of the past week was continued cleaning in the clubhouse. I cleaned and sanitized our beer coolers in the clubhouse. I also cleaned the rest of the kitchen area. A broken water line added to the problem in the kitchen area. After cleaning and sanitizing the beer cooler I painted the interior of our oldest cooler. It was a little rusty on the bottom as well as the shelving units. In the end our kitchen has been cleaned and the product has been organized better in the coolers and refrigerator.
We are nearing the end of January and we can all agree the winter has been pretty gentle so far in Iowa. February and March are the two months when turf damage really becomes a concern. This is the second winter in a row where moisture levels are way below normal. Even with the last snowfall our greens are still in serious stress. When I say I look forward to snow please don’t take it personal…..it’s the best thing for the golf course.
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Brian C Mohr
Director of Golf Operations
City of Spencer
101 W 5th Street
Spencer Municipal Golf Course
Spencer, Iowa 51301
712-260-5370
Spencer Municipal Golf Course 