Don’t set your shop up for failure

We would venture a guess that if you ask any golf course superintendent, “Who is the most important person on your staff?” the majority of the answers would be the equipment technician.

It’s the obvious answer. A good equipment technician makes the superintendent’s life easier. The superintendent’s position has considerably less stress when they are confident in their equipment and its setup.

While traveling the country, we have seen the good, the bad and the ugly regarding equipment maintenance and equipment setup. A few aspects remain a mystery to us.

It’s amazing how many superintendents have no idea how to set up a mower, nor do they understand critical aspects of mower setup. Long gone are the days of simple mower setup and the fixed head Jacobsen 22’ PGM or the Toro GM 1000. Those mowers were relatively simple; the height of cut meant something as there weren’t as many variables regarding the mower setup. Superintendents who were looking for an “edge” were grinding the back of the bedknives or using different rollers.

Fast forward to today. All the greens mowers possess so many different variables, including various bedknife backings, front-roller adjustments, countless front- and rear-roller sizes, multiple angles of attack, multiple choices of bedknives, and frequency of clip adjustments. The list is extensive.

Ask someone what height they cut their greens. It means nothing. One superintendent could be cutting their greens at .125" with a super aggressive mower setup. Another superintendent with the same mower could be cutting their greens at .110" with a much more benign setup. Either way, both are achieving relatively similar results.

Having options and choices isn’t a bad thing. However, we have seen it become a nightmare in some cases. This is typically the case when a superintendent hasn’t done their due diligence to understand their mowers, how those mowers should be set up and what can happen when they are not set up properly.

We get it. The superintendent’s position is difficult as it is, with all the differing responsibilities piled on. But we have seen many examples of how bad mower setup can influence the quality of the surfaces they are attempting to provide.

In many cases, the equipment technician is so proficient that the superintendent rarely must think about mower setup — and everything is fine. There are many other cases, though, where the longtime equipment technician retires or moves on and things begin to go sideways. Reel diameters fall below tolerances, reel bearings aren’t changed or a roller position gets moved, eccentrics get flipped and turf quality starts to decline.

The head-scratching part isn’t that this happens, it’s more that the superintendent has no idea what to look for or why it’s happening because they aren’t familiar with their mower setup.

How can problems be avoided?

First, hire a good equipment technician and pay them. Don’t pinch pennies when it comes to filling the position with reliable talent. A good equipment technician is worth their weight in gold. And yes, they are unequivocally the most important person on the staff.

Second, every superintendent should be spending time in the shop with their equipment technician or with their local dealer learning as much as possible about their mowers and setup. If your equipment technician leaves and you’re left in a position where you don’t have one, the superintendent should have fundamental knowledge of the proper mower setup. Don’t sleep on this! Learn as much as you can.

We devote so much of our continuing education learning about fungicides, herbicides, insecticides and fertilizer technology. But why haven’t we spent as much time focusing on the most basic aspects of the job that have such a tremendous impact on our daily conditions?

The days of simple mower setup are gone. Sadly, many superintendents haven’t done their due diligence to understand the fundamentals of the mowers they depend on every day.