OUTSIDE THE ROPES: Night moves

Advance staff and volunteer meetings. • Hold a pre-meeting of all staff and volunteers during daylight hours at the maintenance facility where everyone can easily find his way to the site. Include a daylight tour of the golf course.

• Pre-mail maps, directions, phone numbers, parking passes and facility locations before this initial meeting. Have volunteers take maps and walk the golf course to locate all holes, roads, direction of travel, landmarks (in this case, the ever-present Statue of Liberty), and know which way is East, West, North and South and how to return to the maintenance building.

• Identify the key personnel so they are recognized as the go-to people for issues that may arise in the dark.

• During the daylight tour of the golf course, all staff and volunteers should locate and identify the location, color and heights of all roping throughout the course. It’s very easy to get equipment handles, rakes, roll bars and your neck caught in a rope.

• Identify all television cable protectors. Located across cart paths, these heavy duty bumpers can cause a disk-bulging jolt if not careful.

• Establish travel routes away from pot holes in roads, low spots in the rough, narrow cart paths and vendor routes.

• Locate all fairway crosswalks.

• Always drive slowly, especially with delicate mowing equipment in tow.

• Watch cart curbing, low edges, pot holes and low points within the primary rough.

• Avoid all dirt roads where stirred up dust agitates eyes.

• Prune low-hanging limbs and travel away from shallow tree roots.

Maintenance area exits.

• Have a "lead dog" showing the way in a slow and orderly fashion.

• Prioritize equipment needs. Green mowers go out first, then tee and collar units followed by fairway mowers. Always have slower units leave last.

• Key personnel should carry radios, cell phones, flashlights, extra maps, duty lists and locations of all rain shelters.

• The vehicles leading the outbound procession should be the only ones with lights on.

• Mechanics should have all mower adjustment tools and spare mowers. Extra mechanics can be used to move and service any lighting units.

• Have all gas caps on equipment, blowers, extra gas cans and vehicles set tightly to reduce spills.

• Use diesel-powered, department of transportation lighting units to illuminate large areas. Be sure not to point lights in the direction of oncoming mowers.

• Locate large light units on high points to shine down and not into workers’ eyes, which could cause loss of night vision.

• Always travel using the low beams to shine down on ground.

• Advise on-course vendors to keep lights on low beams or if possible, to use running lights only so they can be seen.

• Alert mower volunteers to turn off lights as soon as they can see without them.

• Each two-person putting green team should have a lead mower to set the first passes and straight line. Then the team can cut in the same direction for each half. This avoids collisions when going in opposite directions.

• Use mower lights until mower operators can see clearly.

• On the second pass, if the dew is gone, have a syringe team lay down a mist of water to establish the second cut pass.

• Use two clean-up passes to avoid scalping into perimeters and green collars.

• Always have the mechanic back-check cutting quality.

• Watch gallery ropes. They are set close to tees for gallery viewing.

• Locate all in-ground yardage plates and check to see if they are below bed knife setting.

• Go slow, especially if teeing ground is small or elevated. You do not want to lose control of the mower.

• Always blow tee surfaces for debris.

• Empty buckets often if turf is wet or dew-heavy when cutting collars/approaches so as not to change cutting height and scalp turf. GCI