Grass guys...
As an adjunct to Mike Young's recent thread - Dismal River just completed a detailed test of a 9-deck gang mower manufactured by Kesmac in Canada. www.kesmac.com Kesmac makes this product in 5, 7, and (Wow!) 11 deck variants. The head of sales is John Owens - he has been terrific to work with as we needed a bit of hand holding.
Background - Don Mahaffey mentioned to me early on that gang mowers were pretty handy and our new course was designed, in part, to accommodate gang mowing. I believe Don uses these at Wolf Point, and has written more than a bit about the topic. For those less informed - gang mowers were "state of the art" decades ago, but have given way to stand alone five-deck integrated/self propelled fairway mowers. I can tell you there was a ton of apprehension when the Kesmac arrived, concerns about quality of cut and "look", among others.
Unlike units of the past that were "ground driven", the Kesmac unit is fully hydraulic, pto driven, and pulled behind a (we have two Deere 4720's) tractor. The cutting units are also state of the art - basically the same as found on modern mowers.
Why did we look at the Kesmac? Cost and efficiency! The gang mower costs less than an integrated unit, and one person can mow 2x the width, and faster. You do have to have the tractor to pull it, but a tractor is multi job, and already needed for other chores like top dressing, etc. Also, this mower has no Tier 4 issues at all.
I'm told that the Kesmac mows our Nicklaus course in approx. 4 hours, the new course less than 5 - while operated by 1 person! This task used to take 2-3 people, 2-3 mowers, and a similar amount of time. Needless to say, the efficiency is easy on the budget as we have enjoyed savings in people, fuel, repairs, and initial equipment cost. At a time when efficiency matters, this is pretty cool.
With "floating" cutting units, the Kesmac mows well. We never mowed for look (diamond or checkerboard fairway pattern) so there wan't a give up there. We mow the grass for playability over look, yet the look is terrific.
We call the Kesmac "The Judge" and it is a fairway mowing monster. Grass really flies and the cut is terrific.
We have found that sometimes the old ways, especially those updated with current technology, can make for a solid option.
Our guys told me last week we might be interested in having 2 Kesmac units. Quite an evolution from the day it arrived.
Back to the future!