| No one likes their hard work to go unnoticed – vibrant, healthy turf will never be seen covered up by debris. Blowers and sweepers are easily-overlooked pieces of equipment, but they’re integral to dealing with the unruly messes that come with managing turf and trees, from aeration to trimming. The Hideaway Golf Club Clearing the 36-hole Hideaway Golf Course in LaQuinta, Cali. isn’t a small job. Keeping it clean and helping through overseeding its hybrid Bermudagrass fairways and ultradwarf greens is even tougher. That’s when superintendent Gerry Tarsitano decides that just his three Harper Industries TurboVacs aren’t enough for the job – and borrows four more from neighboring golf courses to clear the course. “Our heaviest time of use is during overseeding,” says Tarsitano. “We’ll run them for 10- to 12-straight hours during overseeding. They’re pretty much bulletproof for us then.” The TurboVac’s durability and versatility keep Tarsitano’s crew moving during the event, even after hours of running hard. “Our machines get probably two times as much abuse as guys who don’t overseed,” he says. Despite the hours of cleaning and collecting, the vacuums have held out for the last 10 years on his course without breaking Tarsitano’s budget with repairs. “We’ve had to replace a couple engines as we’ve gone, but that’s just because they have so many hours on them,” he says. “The reliability of that unit is really there. It uses standard switches and parts that we’ve had, so the repair costs have been pretty minimal.” But it’s not enough just to work during those events. Tarsitano’s course is held to the higher air quality standards in California, a common stumbling block for vacuums and blowers. The sweeper/vacuum combination features a recirculating air dust control system to cut back on released particles. “For us down here, we have issues with PM10, particulate matter below 10 micrometers. We’ve got the air quality management district on us to keep the air clear,” he says. “It’ll keep the fine particles from being pushed back out of the air vents. Down here in the desert, we’ve got windstorms and Santa Ana winds, so we’re always dealing with dust in the air. The cover plate allows ventilation but keeps that dust down. They’re very environmental.” Not only does the machine keep the air a little cleaner, it protects the turf through less wear. It weighs in light, able to be hooked up to a utility vehicle rather than a larger PTO tractor. “They’re lightweight, so we don’t have to have it mounted behind a tractor,” he says. “We can run it with the Toro Workman or John Deere Gator. They work great with them. We’ll sweep roughs, sweep up divots on the driving range, clean around the tee. We can use it to pick up leaves and manicure the course. It just cleans up the golf course.” That versatility and power gives it a special place in Tarsitano’s fleet, fitting several different clearing jobs. “Its flexibility is one of its strong points,” he says. “It allows us to raise and lower the height of the sweeper. It’s not too tall to get under trees. The power it generates is great too. If the guys go slow enough they can pick up 90 percent off the ground right away. It saves on labor because of its power of suction is strong enough to get something right away. A hydraulic high lift dump empties the load between each run, saving time for Tarsitano there as well. “The big cargo load is really helpful, too,” he says. “So you can be out for an hour and still have room in the cargo hold before you have to go back.” Though Tarsitano has had an issue or two with the length of the hitch sometimes binding the machine into positions in which it gets stuck, it doesn’t take much to fix the problem when it gets locked up, he says. “Because they’re a lighter unit, we’ve been able to pull them out of those positions with minimal damage,” he says. “There’s very little training needed to handle it. Anyone can do it.” Corral de Tierra Country Club Superintendent Doug Ayres doesn’t think that often about his Buffalo Turbine blower, even though his maintenance crew uses it almost every day at Corral de Tierra Country Club in Corral de Tierra, Calif. near Pebble Beach. “I’ve always had good luck with the Buffalo blower,” he says. “It’s just one of those items that you don’t have to think too much about.” He doesn’t have to look far to see it used, though. The blower is used routinely to clear off the golf cart paths on the 18-hole course with a Poa-bentgrass-rye mix fairway.  With a blower set up to clear away debris while driving, trimming cart paths is a one-man job.“We’ll primarily use it on our cart paths, cleaning those off,” says Ayres about how the equipment is utilized. “There’s a section of poplars that drop their leaves slowly over eight weeks, so we’ll use it there. We use the blower to consolidate items, so we don’t have to just pick them all up by hand.”Ayres doesn’t use core aerification because the course is topdressed monthly, so the blower sticks mostly to gathering natural debris. But he uses it specifically for one task: path edging. Ayres uses an edger attached to the side of a utility vehicle to track the cart paths, with the blower connected behind, clearing away the clippings and remains. The Buffalo blower is a vital part of the setup, making the job easy enough for one crew member to take a few hours to complete the finishing touches of course care. “The blower is a good tool to use for the job,” says Ayres. “We’ve got a couple miles of cart path, and with that, it’s a one-man operation. By staying on that on a regular basis, it’s just a small trimming that can be blown off. It’s four or five hours on a closed day. “Our members have become accustomed to seeing them edged on a regular basis. When they’re done like that, it just looks finished.” Connected to a utility vehicle like one of the course’s John Deere Gators, the blower fits the course’s needs better for its size, Ayres says. “The hopes are to get a second one for when we’re blowing leaves. That size is better-suited for us because it doesn’t need a PTO to get around,” he says. “It’s stronger than a backpack but easier to get in and out of places than a tractor.” That maneuverability gives it an edge in dealing with more precise jobs around Ayres’s course. “It’s great for blowing debris away from bunkers,” says Ayres. “A tractor is so wide, you can only get within eight to six feet from a bunker’s edge. You can put this on a smaller vehicle and get a lot closer. It means you don’t have to do as much hand work. It’s something with a lighter footprint and a little quicker to get around.” Though repairs have been light so far, Ayres recently purchased a new aerospace polymer spout for the blower, as the aluminum spout gets damaged with bumps during use, “though if a guy’s really paying attention, he’s not going to damage it.” When it comes down to it, its reliability is what makes it an unnoticed but necessary part of his equipment fleet. “It’s the same frame, engine and everything,” says Ayres. “If we don’t have it, like when we loan it to other courses, then it’s a big deal. But here, it’s one of those things that you don’t have to think a lot about.” GCI |
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