An brief discussion of reel maintenance

        Our winter maintenance has been steadily progressing throughout this weird weather winter.  Our greens, tees, and fairway reels have been ground, and I am in the process of doing our rough units as we speak.  Pictured to the left is one of our greens mowing reels on the grinder.  The grinder we have, a Neary 550, is a nice unit to work with.  There is more manual adjustment and more operator involvement than some of the newer models, but once the nuances are figured out, grinding reels is not a chore.
      
        The picture below is a close up of how the stone make light contact with the reelstock while it spins backwards.  Every so often, the stone is moved closer to the reel, which leads to another thousandth of an inch removed from the stock.  This process continues until each blade is sharp from end to end. 

        The larger units involve a second process called a relief grind.  A relief grind is reelstock taken off the top at an angle, and reduces the braking effect that a blade encounters while cutting turf.  The better the relief, the longer the blades stay sharp, in layman's terms.  While I may get two or three greens or tee units sharp in a day, fairway and rough take about one day to fully complete. 

        Have a great day!

Welcome!

Welcome to the revised Plymouth Country Club maintenance blog.  One of my goals for this new year is to further utilize this blog to communicate the activities of myself and our staff, and to show you interesting pictures that we see during our day to day maintenance.  My hope is that this blog will help illustrate what we do to provide you with the best turf conditions that Mother Nature allows. 

I would also like to welcome Pat Bayley to our club as our new head golf professional.  Pat brings much experience to our club and I am excited to get the opportunity to work with him to bring you a great golf experience at PCC.  Have a great day, and I will blog to you soon!