Travels with Terry (Equipment ideas)

Globetrotting consulting agronomist Terry Buchen visits many golf courses annually with his digital camera in hand. He will share helpful ideas relating to maintenance equipment from the golf course superintendents he visits – as well as a few ideas of his own – with timely photos and captions that explore the changing world of golf course management.

Roof addition

A Steiner four-wheel drive tractor comes equipped with a built-in roll bar. But to protect her workers from sunlight and rainfall, Karla Cora, director of golf course operations at the Palmas del Mar Country Club in Humacao, Puerto Rico, had the equipment manager mount a used roof from an E-Z-GO golf cart to the roll bar. This was done using two 1-inch-square metal tubing brackets, which were bent at one end with a torch and then welded to the roll bar. The rear portion of the roof was mounted to the top of the roll bar with two 3/8-inch-diameter bolts, nuts and lock washers. The front end of the roof was bolted to the square tubing with the same size nuts, bolts and lock washers through 1/4-inch-diameter holes drilled into each angle iron bracket. A 1-inch-diameter PVC pipe coupling was glued underneath the front center portion of the roof using PVC glue. In the underneath rear portion, a 1/16-inch-diameter wire was strung to allow the pointed end of an umbrella to be mounted into the PVC coupling. An umbrella handle can be held in place by the wire.

The square tubing, hardware, flat black enamel paint and umbrella were purchased for about $40, and the labor time was about two hours.

Spreader protection

The pendulum action spreading unit that distributes granular products on the rear of a Vicon spreader can be damaged when backing into a parking space – especially against a wall – in a turf care center. Karla Cora, director of golf course operations at the Palmas del Mar Country Club in Humacao, Puerto Rico, wanted to prevent this. So one of her staff welded a 2-inch-diameter, hollow steel tubing frame to the frame of the Toro Workman, on which the Vicon is mounted. The metal pipe was welded together and spray painted with a flat black enamel.

One of Cora’s staff also mounted a four-gallon Richway TurfMarker foam marker, which has a single drop nozzle, on the right side of vehicle. Two 3/8-inch-diameter bolts were welded to the bottom of the vehicle’s frame. One-inch angle iron, lock washers and nuts were placed over the top of the tank to hold the foam marker in place. The single foam marker nozzle was mounted with 3/8-inch-wide zip strips strung through 7/32-inch-diameter holes in the right rear fender.

The foam marker cost $480, and the piping, angle iron and zip strips were in stock. The total labor time to mount the frame and foam marker was about four hours.

Terry Buchen, CGCS, MG, is president of Golf Agronomy International. He’s a 38-year, life member of the GCSAA. He can be reached at terrybuchen@earthlink.net.