Winter Maintenance

One of the most commonly asked questions of our department is "What do you do all winter?" Even though it may be considered the off season for golf in Michigan, it is anything but for the Greens Department. In addition to handling all of the snow and platform tennis maintenance duties, we must tear down every piece of golf course equipment during the winter months in preparation for the next season.

Pictured above is our Head Mechanic, Nathan Foondle, working on one of our three fairway units. These cutting units(reels) must be completly disassembled, thoroughly cleaned, bearings replaced, greased, reassembled and sharpened for the upcoming season. This detailed work is just some of the routine winter maintenance required to upkeep our equipment at the highest level possible.


This fairway unit already has had the reels sharpened and is now ready for a through inspection. The machine is placed in our lift to inspect, and replace where necessary, every hydraulic hose, change filters, and all necessary fluids.

Winter provides our two mechanics with about four and a half months to thoroughly dig into every piece of equipment from the smallest weed whip to our large John Deere tractors. This is an extremely key and time consuming task. With the season just around the corner, about 85-90% of the all the equipment is complete. Just a handful more items to get through before mother nature says it's time to golf. Authored by: Kevin Peck, Assistant Golf Course Superintendent