Winter Work cont...

In the golf business, in the northern areas anyway, we often get asked  "what do you do all winter?" It is a source of amusement for most in the business as we assume people ask because since they leave for warmer climates or stop playing golf they assume we do too? Or since the courses may be closed or the grass does not need mowing we have nothing to do! I am sure it is the simple fact that what we do is not well understood. As a rule in our industry we tend to keep to ourselves and not interact with the players a whole bunch. Some do not even play the game. I always felt education was a blessing and as I learned more I could not wait to impart this knowledge to anyone I could. Ask anyone who has asked me a question and they will confirm they walked away with a much larger understanding to their dilemma. Personal flaw, but one I am working on. I assumed this blog would highlight a few of the things we do and since I started it in the off-season it should give a few answers to those questions.
The off-season is actually the busiest season for one of the crew on a golf course and that is the mechanic or person in charge of keeping the equipment running. They carry many titles now: equipment technician, etc. ours happens to be Will Warner and he also carries the title Asst. Superintendent. Will maintains a pesticide license and helps me with the applications as well as all the large area fertilizer applications. He is our resident tree expert, landscaper, handyman and all around go to person for everything at Mink. I would be remiss not to highlight some of his work this winter. Of course like the "duh" moment earlier this week at Gillette when I thought of taking pictures AFTER I left the stadium I have missed many photo ops with Will. Like when he replaced the front tires on our new/used fairway mower. A fairly large tire so an interesting photo. Interesting side note when Will returned from a mechanics seminar held at Pine Hills in Plymouth he mentioned they had one of our mowers and the tires looked like ours did when we purchased it. Apparently these tires do not hold up well if you have a lot of paved paths and drive on them often. We have had fairway mowers around ten years old with no visible tread wear so to buy a used one only two or three seasons old and have them be almost bald was shocking. Another photo missed was when we switched the tires on the bobcat. We have turf tires and regular tires and we switch back and forth as necessary. Not a huge project but an interesting photo op.


Sprayer. side booms already removed



Entire boom removed

Used boom as it was shipped to us on a pallet

I was a little late on this project but at least caught some of it. We had an issue with one small piece of our boom assembly last fall. The pivot on one of the side booms as it connects to the back boom rusted and broke. We ordered the replacement and then proceeded to call after it three or four times. After three months or so we were very frustrated to say the least. we seriously thought of replacing the entire boom with a traditional non-covered one to eliminate these pivots. The mix-up was blamed on the outsourced piece not manufactured by Toro. To make up for the hassle they offered us and entire used boom from Maine free. Of course we had to pay Cape Cod Express's blood money to get it over to the island from Wareham. Anyway, Will began the project before his vacation and will continue this extensive project upon his return this week. He will get a reprieve mid-week as he heads to providence to attend the New England Regional Turfgrass Conference and Show. More on that later....