Travels with Terry: Equipment Ideas

Sink drain soil profiler
Jim Phelps, superintendent at the Gateway Golf and Country Club in Fort Myers, Fla., has excellent Tifeagle Bermudagrass greens that are very tight to get a standard soil probe to penetrate through the surface – and a wedge-shape soil profiler produces too large of a soil sample. Phelps conceived a unique soil probe profiler made out of a 1 ¼” diameter x 12” long chromed sink drain extension pipe, with an 1” diameter x 16” long wooden dowel placed inside, that effectively pushes the soil sample plug through the end of the pipe. This nice size plug provides viewing of the soil, thatch, organic matter and turf canopy much better and it is much easier to replace the plug than when using a standard-size soil probe. An added bonus is the end of the pipe is like a knife blade and it penetrates the dense turf canopy producing a clean, sharp hole. The materials cost about $10 and there was no real labor involved.

Higher and higher
Raising the mowing height on an Allen Hover Mower was successfully done on a dedicated mower by Tim Cann, CGCS, director of golf maintenance, at the Harbour Ridge Yacht and Country Club in Palm City, Fla. Cann came up with this idea in 1986 so he could accent the mounding on a par 3 by maintaining the grass longer, at the Imperial Lakes Golf Course in Palmetto, Fla., where he was the superintendent. He now uses a taller height of cut on the bulkheads adjacent to the greens at Harbour Ridge to help slow down golf balls from rolling into the water.

Parts include 1 ½”-diameter schedule 40 PVC pipe and fittings, PVC glue, seven #10 self-tapping screws and marine tech epoxy. It takes less than an hour of labor time to assemble and costs less than $20. The operator should be careful loading and unloading from a turf vehicle so the PVC does not crack.