One of the many jobs that is essential that we perform during the off-season is the maintenance of our vast collection of reel mowers. These are the mowers that cut the greens, tees, and fairways. It is a monotonous but technical job that includes oil and filter changes, replacing worn bearings and cables, sharpening reels, and a lot of precise adjustments. While this sounds simple, in practice it takes a lot of time and care to do successfully.
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| A triplex mower on the lift getting ready to go through winter servicing. This mower has 3 sets of reels. |
Reel mowers require a lot of maintenance and care to perform at the level that we expect. Every year, all of the mowers are torn down and built back up to "factory specs". Each reel on a mower takes a full day to have it fully ready for the next year. To put that into context, we have approximately 45 reels in total on our mowers and each has to be made ready for the next season.
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| Equipment manager Aaron Brown, sharpening the reel of a triplex mower. |
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| Aaron is preparing to sharpen the "bed knife" of a reel mower. |
With course conditioning being of the highest level at HFCC, this maintenance is essential if not glamorous.
