Feature
MOWING HAS ALWAYS
BEEN A PREREQUISITE
by Wg Cdr Arun Kumar Singh (Retd)
President, GCS&MAI
olf since its beginning has been
played on �ne, short textured
turf. This requirement was met
in those early days by selecting
areas having natural �nely
textured wiry turf comprising
slow growing grasses. It’s not
surprising that golf was con�ned
to few golf courses in east Scotland to meet
this requirement in the beginning. The links
connecting the dunes the farmlands provided
relatively even land created by sand blown
by winds through natural top dressing which
made the natural bumps and hollows much
less severe. Selection of these grounds also
laid out the �rst principle of Golf Course
Design I.e. ‘to work with the lay of land
available‘.
The requirement of short, even and �ne
textured turf made Mowing a pre requisite
for golf courses as it could otherwise be
not an all year around pursuit in areas away
from such naturally occurring areas of thin
sandy soils. The game could not be played
in places having better soils as they became
lush pastures and the grass could not be kept
short by using scythes or the like tools.
Sheep and Rabbits
Mowing in the early days was done by
grazing animals such as sheep and Rabbits
and the practice went on for centuries. The
advantage of zero cost, some fertilizing
through droppings was certainly a big plus but
the practice also had a severe disadvantage
– it encouraged growth of more lush but
alien grasses which adversely impacted the
playing conditions. The sheep also had a role
to play in creation of bunkers though there is
a debate on which came �rst – The Bunker
or the Sheep?
Scything – The Early
Mechanisation
By late Nineteenth century, Green keepers
had begun using alternative ways of keeping
the grass short and Scything was the most
commonly used. Scything continued to be
used right till beginning of twentieth century
to at least mow the tees with the only mower
generally available was being reserved for
Greens.
42 GolfPlus JULY 2020
Scything
By late Nineteenth century, popularity of golf
had grown and golf courses were �rst taken
away from links to Heathlands and then as
pressure mounted from cities, they began to
be constructed in richer and heavier soils.
The demands generated from this rising
popularity of golf included the necessity of
mowing not only Greens and Tees but also
the fairways. Clearly, mechanisation of
mowing had become a necessity.
The First Mowers
Edwin Budding, an engineer employed in
a woollen weaving �rm in Gloucestershire
designed a machine in 1830 which comprised
a cutting cylinder with helically arranged
blades working against a sharp bottom blade.
He designed the machine to �rst to shear the
woollen cloth to produce a smooth surface
and then developed the concept to mow grass.
Ransomes of Ipswich, a company which
still exists, started producing the machines
under licence from 1932. Initial prototypes
were heavy and cumbersome machines and
Ransomes soon shifted to their own design in
1858 which included an enclosed gear box.
Ransomes model was a big improvement and
soon became successful with more than 1000
machines being sold in the �rst year itself.
In times to come, more than 30 �rms joined
in the fray with most under licence from
Budding but some also went for their own
design aided by the fact that Budding’s patent
was not applicable in Scotland.
Self-Powered Mowers
Attempts were made to make the machines
lighter with ability to cover larger areas
quickly. Side wheel driven design made
them lighter and cheaper but a steam engine
powered mower developed by Leyland
weighed 1.5 tons and could be operated
only in a few estates. Ransome then brought
out an internal combustion engine mounted
mower in 1902 but it remained popular only
in sports grounds and was not widely used in
golf courses because they gave a poor �nish.
Golf Courses Continued to use manually
pushed/pulled mowers and that too not
every day. It probably was so because the
requirement of very �nely mowed surfaces
had not become the norm till then. It was
only in 1930s that further innovation made
the use of over green mowers possible and
golf courses started using them. The initial
models could not be lifted and turned so the
greens had to be mowed half in one direction
and the other half in other direction.
Mowing the Fairways
Innovations in mowing the fairways
developed on a similar path and the �rst one
to be used was a single unit horse drawn
machine in the US in 1914. Interestingly, the