Maine challenge

Growing up, Kevin Keezer learned how to handle the mechanics of his family’s cars. Oil? Easy. Brakes? No problem. Now that most newer models are filled with electronics, he heads to the dealership. “I let them deal with it,” he says. “The convenience is nice.”

Keezer still handles plenty of the mechanics of the course maintenance fleet at Fox Ridge Club in Auburn, Maine, where he arrived as superintendent in November 2024. Keezer can count on a part-time mechanic, “but if he’s not there, I jump on.” No matter who does the work, it is important for Fox Ridge: When Keezer took over from founding superintendent Ed Michaud, most of the equipment was old and tired. Some triplex mowers had logged more than 13,000 hours.

Keezer developed a five-year equipment plan that will ultimately make his job and his mechanic’s job easier — and make the course and the fairways as sharp as a freshly ground reel. “Ownership knew that the equipment was coming to the end of its life,” Keezer says. “My main thing last winter was coming up with a plan to start tackling the equipment and the equipment needs — what we needed right away, what could wait a little bit.”

The club had recently purchased a used triplex mower with just 198 hours on it — a welcome change from 13,000 — which allowed Keezer and his team to retire another triplex and strip it for parts for four other mowers. Keezer still wants to replace two more triplexes.

The maintenance team also updated a sprayer, and added a used roller and two work carts. Coming up on the list: Replacing a hitchy aerator, updating fairway units and the spray rig, and finding “a newer, better tractor that we can actually put an aerifier on.”

Keezer is a Mainer. He played high school golf less than an hour from Fox Ridge — he teed off at the course for one road match not long after it opened in 2001 — and his parents live 20 minutes away. He has a feel for the turf. He knows what it needs.

“Up here, it’s really just maintaining a nice, playable surface,” he says. “We’re not a super high-end course. We’re a public course that relies on public play. We try to alleviate some compaction from traffic and carts.” His biggest challenge? “Dollar spot. We try to aerify every couple years. I would love to do it every year, but with the staffing numbers” — Fox Ridge peaks at five to six full-timers and five to six part-timers — “and some of the equipment, it’s hard to do them on a consistent basis.”

Keezer opens the season with an insecticide application and sprays fairways monthly from May through September with a popular name-brand fungicide that claims up to 28 days of control. Before the first spray, though, dollar spot will pop up. “If we don’t have any preventative out, it starts on some of the shadier fairways and kind of works its way around,” Keezer says. “For the most part, our fairways are extremely clean. Dollar spot and some random fairy patch for a couple weeks. It just gets really dark green then goes away.”

Keezer also applies wetting agents every two or three months. They work, but they will likely work better after he finishes overhauling the 84-year-old, 800-gallon diesel pump station. “Once it kicks on, you gotta make sure you have 800 gallons worth of heads popped up,” he says. “We have a jockey pump we could run most of the course with, but once you get up to the 12th, 13th, 14th and 15th, they’re up a big hill, so it can’t handle running pumps up there at all. With this new pump, we’re going to be able to water the fairways a little more efficiently, and hopefully our wetting agents will be a little more efficient.”

The pump station is still about as finicky as some of the cars of Keezer’s youth. He figured out how to handle them. He can figure out the pump station. “A lot of learning on the fly this year,” he says.

— Matt LaWell