Monday, June 20, 2016

Why are those reflectors on the course?

You may notice that on a few of the fairways there are reflective driveway markers along the edges.  We start work every morning at 4:30am to make sure that the course is mowed and set up for the 7:30am shotgun tournaments.  Because we mow in the dark with head lights on, we were having a hard time burning in our lines.  Kevin, a second year seasoned employee decided to put the reflective markers along the edges so could start his first line in the same spot every time.  This has allowed him to start his first pass straight and on the same line.  If you can mow the first line straight, each line after that should also be straight.  That's the plan at least...


We have native grass throughout the course that our irrigation pipes and valves run through.  When the grass gets tall in the summer, it becomes hard to locate the valves.  Years past we staked each valve with a 5 foot T-post that we painted the top blue.  They never looked great but they served a great purpose.  I was reading a colleague's post about how they staked their valves in the native and I thought their idea was great, so I copied them.  I purchased 75 48inch x 5/16inch blue reflective driveway fibermarkers. We were able to pound them into the ground so they so stuck out about 36inches.  The great thing about these markers is that they are hardly noticeable and that they are reflective to headlights if we every needed to find them in the middle of the night or morning...  Its never fun looking for a valve when you have an irrigation leak.