Golf course superintendents discuss John Deere's new A Model mowers, weighing in on cut quality, efficiency, and how the equipment affects their daily operations.
It's a fun golf course to maintain. It's located in the middle of the city. It's a small piece of property, 93 acres of property here with around 71 acres of total turf. The condensed property, a lot of shade issues, a lot of old live Oaks. They're 80, 100 years old. They kind of run the perimeters of the golf course and the holes well.
I maintain the equipment, make sure everything works, cuts in proper order. Basically just make sure everything's cutting right.
Kevin Shields, I'm a golf course superintendent here at palace park. Course was built in 2003, 2004. It's a Greg Norman, Pete dye design. We have SEADORF, Bass Valley. 100% wall to wall greens, fairways, tees, and rough. So the same variety of grass cuts of the turf out here.
My name is Henry Heinzroth. I'm the equipment manager here at Talis park. I am in charge of all the equipment as far as maintenance goes. Quality of cut, setting up reels. I oversee a lot of that stuff. Everything that goes on here. I'm pretty much in charge of.
The A models since we've been on lease, have been great. We recently started working with the speed control and the traction unit on those. And we're able to get a better quality cut. And I feel like the guys overall have been a lot more efficient, more fairway.
On the new lease package this came in in September, we got the new A models. Quality of cut has gotten better with new technology with the reels, and overall, it's just a better piece of equipment.
I noticed, and so did the operator, a huge difference right away with the quality of cut. Slowed down the turn speed, noticed that it was easier on the turf. Just started utilizing some of the features the machine had and find that it was a good quality to have. And I set them all that way.
Now, the other good thing about it is we're able, on the E models, we're able to lower the RPMs of the machine without changing the ground speed of the machine and the real speed as well. So the real speed staying the same, being that the clip rate is going to be the same without the high RPMs of the engine, which saves us a bunch of fuel.
I slowed the actual mows speed down, but not the engine speed. I slowed down the turn speed, engaged the traction control and the cruise control. And he said he noticed an issue before we did anything. When they make a tight turn, it would tear the turf up a little bit. And when I slowed it down, he could keep the pedal to the floor and there was no more issue at all. He could make a tight turn, no more turf tearing, nothing.
The turn speed feature is really nice because it does keep the guys from stock spinning the tires so hard on the grass.
I'm kind of excited about it because new technology is good. I think if you don't stay up with it, you're going to get left behind.
Absolutely recommend it. Yeah, nothing compared to what we had before, so it's awesome. Awesome job on that part.
If you have a chance to mess with it, play with it, try it, and you'll never know until you do it. Until you figure it out. And myself, I think it's a good thing. I'm happy we have it, and I would encourage anybody that has the opportunity to go for it and get it to do it.
