Sunday, July 26, 2015

New Turf

I made the move to the Atlanta Athletic Club in Johns Creek, GA this month - my first day was Monday the 13th. I am again working with colleagues Lukus Harvey and Andrew Fike from PGA National and The Ritz-Carlton, and I have a great group of men in the shop who have been very welcoming. I have many great memories of PGA National and I know the shop there is in good hands with my one-time intern Anthony Herzog in the lead.

Founded in 1898, the AAC is on a very special property next to the Chattahoochee river north of Atlanta, with excellent facilities and resources to maintain the golf courses and grounds. I am thrilled and honored to be here, and will be implementing my shop setup over the coming months and documenting it here. 

Along with my technical training and life-long vocational education, I have been very fortunate in my career to have worked with some very smart, talented, forward-thinking folks. I have also had the opportunity to travel and learn from my peers around the world. This experience has enabled me to develop tools and techniques of the trade which I will implement in the AAC shops.

First things first: priority is always turf quality of cut and after cut appearance. With this in mind, I planned a visit from SIP Corporation's Mark Pilger in order to have all the technicians go through reel relief grinding and cutting unit setup procedures.  We had a great four hour class on Saturday, July 25th, covering bedknife grinding, cutting unit paralleling and setup, and spin and relief grinding John Deere QA5 cutting units. After the guys left at noon, Mark and I finished the relief grinding process on the remaining few reels, and then Mark was on to the next leg of his trip to the Northeast.

Below, from the left: AAC Equipment Technicians Al, Bryant, Jackie, Jimmy, and me.


Below, one of our cutting units on the Peerless 7000 grinder during class.


I should have more updates soon - it will be interesting to see how my preliminary QA5 setup looks on the Highlands course later this week.

Best regards,