Written by: Paul L. Carter, CGCS
2021
Fairways mowed with fancy striping patterns are very eye catching but are extremely labor intensive. The Bear Trace at Harrison Bay has switched from striping fairways to mowing in a “traditional cut” pattern - one side of the fairway mowed towards the green and the other side mowed toward the tee boxes. By changing the mowing patterns it now takes 2 hours less each week to mow the fairways, saving 312 man-hours annually. Fairway mowers use 2.6 gallons of diesel per hour to operate resulting in a saving of 811 gallons of fuel, which means the elimination of 18,641 pounds of point source CO2 emission as well as a significant financial saving.
