It’s U.S. Open week and the maintenance team at The Country Club in Brookline has the golf course dialed in. The staff and army of volunteers from around the world are out the door each morning by 4:30 a.m. to start their work under the cover of darkness. Preparing all the playing surfaces in advance of 6:45 a.m. tee times on both the first and 10th hole requires great coordination and communication.
Watching a dozen fairway mowers cut in formation like fighter jets each day is a sight to behold. All the turf is mowed in one direction, with each mower following the next. It is easy to focus on the equipment and synchronization but if you look closely, you will notice a unique item has been added to each fairway unit – a yellow tennis ball.
What does a tennis ball have to do with preparing the golf course for our national championship? Well, the purpose of the tennis ball is to alert fellow operators in the event there’s a problem and they need to stop. Let’s say, for example, one of the cutting units on a fairway mower suddenly stops working properly. The person that is following behind the faulty mower would grab the tennis ball and throw it forward to get the attention of their teammate, who otherwise would not realize there was an issue. This simple and inexpensive attachment helps the operators quickly communicate with one another from the back of the formation to the front. It is just one of many procedures used by the grounds crew at The Country Club to prevent any issues from becoming a problem.
Of course, most golf courses do not have anywhere close to this number of mowers or staff to prepare the fairways each day. However, many courses do use multiple fairway mowers at one time. Instead of having them each cut a different fairway, pair them up, add a tennis ball and have them cut the same fairway together so they can help spot any issues that may occur on the other machines.
Northeast Region Agronomists:
Adam Moeller, director, Green Section Education – amoeller@usga.org
Darin Bevard, senior director, Championship Agronomy – dbevard@usga.org
Elliott L. Dowling, senior consulting agronomist – edowling@usga.org
John Daniels, agronomist – jdaniels@usga.org