Mike Rollins, Regional Manager at SIP Grinder has been in the golf industry for a short 20 months but boy howdy has he made a splash on Twitter. Mike married into the reel grinding business then fell in love with it, using his background in film and media to create outstanding videos promoting equipment managers. We’re getting deep into reel theory, bedknife angles, and relief grinding this week and talking about the hazards of twisted frames. Go behind the scenes with Mike (and DeeWayne Grindz) to learn what the culture of East Lake is really like during the Tour Championship.
Transcript
Trent Manning:
welcome to the reel turf techs podcast for the technician that wants to get reel follow along. As we talk to industry professionals and address hot topics that we all face along the way we’ll learn tips and tricks. I’m your host, Trent. Manny let’s have some Welcome to the real turf text podcast, episode 29. Today, we’re talking to Mike Rawlins. He is the regional manager at SRP Grindr corporation. With less than two years in the industry under his belt, Mike has hit the ground running. Visiting as many golf courses and equipment managers is the van. We’ll let him get to. Learning as much as he can from all of us. Mike created some great videos promoting. Our profession. Nada mentioned, gifting us with his alter ego. Dewayne grinds. For some. Comedic relief. Welcome mark to the real turf techs podcast. How are you doing today?
Mike Rollins:
Doing well, dude, really happy to finally be on here, man. I’m excited.
Trent Manning:
No, that wasn’t going to be a lot of fun. And so we were talking before the call, but how much fun we had at east lake together? Me, my Dewayne and all the guys that, were working there,
Mike Rollins:
Yeah, man. Too much fun. We were, we were talking about that. We shouldn’t be allowed to have that much fun. I don’t think it’s just that tournament in general. I think it’s any tournament, any golf course in general? I don’t think I’ve had a bad experience on a golf course yet. And the industry has been awesome for that and it’s been a ton of fun and I feel like I should get in trouble for how much fun I get, to have.
Trent Manning:
yeah, I was waiting for a Rafta to say tone it down Dewayne, but, but he didn’t, he was loving it too.
Mike Rollins:
yeah. When the director of agronomy keeps saying, Hey, where’s Dewayne. I guess I got to keep pulling Dewayne out.
Trent Manning:
That’s
Mike Rollins:
yeah, we were, we were having some fun with that character, for sure.
Trent Manning:
Yep. And I do want to thank you for keeping the energy up. So for your listeners that doesn’t know, Mike, his energy level is out of control.
Mike Rollins:
We talked about this. I don’t, know if this is podcast friendly, but, Ralph came up to me. He’s like, Mike, what drugs are you on? And I swear, I said, you could drug test me now you can drug test me in six weeks. It doesn’t matter. it’s just too much fun, man. I think it’s just a perfect position for me in this job, in this industry. So,
Trent Manning:
Well, I don’t I
Mike Rollins:
fun when other guys are having fun.
Trent Manning:
I don’t know if you heard it, but when we went out and rode around one morning, it was one Howard was there and I come back and Howard is like, you okay. I was like, yeah, I think I’m going to need a nap now, after riding around with a Mach.
Mike Rollins:
Chris, for the listed or the Chris Lewis, the equipment manager at east lake, he rode around with me after you had left. I think it was like, Saturday was the last day I pulled Dewayne out and he rode around with me in the cart and people like giving me thumbs up and wave. And as you know, what’s up D and stuff like that. And, he looked over and he’s like, oh my God, I forgot. You’re dressed up as DUI right now. So he wasn’t ready for that. And same thing. He’s like, all right, I got to get out of this golf cart, man.
Trent Manning:
tell us how you got into the turf industry.
Mike Rollins:
Okay. So. Short answers. I married into it. I don’t think you and I have even talked about this yet. Halfway a long answer is I grew up in a shop. And my father had a business, transporting, specialized trucks and equipment, things like that. Military stuff across the country had about 11 or 12 tractors and trailers running. So I grew up in that shop. I grew up in that environment born with a wrench in my hand, so I could get around the shop, but went to the university of Florida, ended up in film and media did that for about five or six years. Did some subcontracted stuff in that geo was building drones from scratch before it was cool to fly drones and stuff. And then mark Pilger, the owner of sip came up to me and asked me if I wanted to be as Eastern regional manager, the backstory on that. Is mark is actually my father-in-law and I married his daughter. We met in 2011 at the university of Florida. And so I’ve known mark for 10 years and literally up until January of 2020. So right before the GIS Orlando show knew nothing about this industry knew nothing about Mark’s career, this company. And when he asked me that we took a quick trip about a one week long trip and I loved every second of it knew I loved the shop environment knew I could talk to these guys and have a ton of fun. So I took the job and literally four days later went to GIS, Orlando set up the booth and here we are, dude. And I haven’t missed a beat and, and loving every second of it.
Trent Manning:
That was awesome. That was a good story. I love it.
Mike Rollins:
yeah, yeah. Short answer. I’d tell them, like I married into it and they’re like, ah, you rascal, but it’s I grew up in the shop man and eventually made my way back into It which is pretty cool. And I’m happy to be here.
Trent Manning:
Yup. Awesome. Tell me if you relief ground or not.
Mike Rollins:
All right. So we were talking about this before we started the podcast. I do. I still feel like I want to preface it because relief is, is a religion and lapping is a religion and things like that. And 90% of what I know what I’ve learned in this industry. So far as from guys like you from John Patterson, Anthony Hertz, sock, skip Heinz a ton of guys. And so I luckily fell right into the middle of it. And you guys have just been giving me the cheat codes. So everything I’m about to talk about is just a big, giant conglomerate of information that I’ve been able to accrue. And I try to absorb as much as possible. And then a little bit of about 10% of it’s been experienced, but You know, without being at somebody’s course explaining the politically correct answer. I think it depends on your budget, your manpower, you know, your labor. Do you have one guy helping you, five guys helping you or none? Are you out mowing in the morning and then coming in and working on equipment, just depends on a million different variables, but asking me personally, 1000%, I relief 10 times out of 10 prime example, you and I were talking about this, a bunch of Eastlake during the tournament, the tour championship, it, we were on the fifth Mo on fairways, on Myers Zosia on Sunday tournament Sunday. I took a photo. I’m gonna post it on Twitter to here. Actually maybe tonight or tomorrow. We were still sharing all the way across that relief, just on that. Meyer’s the way we were totally parallel angles were right on knives. We were on the fifth Moe on fairways, still sharing all the way. Quality of cut was way up that reel was just running so much cooler, so much more efficiently with that relief. And so that, for me personally, that was right there. That was like, boom. It makes sense to do all of that work up front for that exponential return on investment. So I’m a big proponent of relief. Patterson taught me that a lot of other guys have taught me that and you and I were talking about this JC J J dot C dot. He’s a bit of a hybrid right. Where it’s like, he knows the benefits of relief, but he also knows, you know, okay. Like I only have so much time, so much manpower U2. Right? Same thing we were talking about it too. Look, I don’t have time to shut everything down and go put relief in it. Let me slap some, some laughing compound in there and just kind of get me through. Maybe one or two more modes, you know, before I can I, then Yeah. I got to break them down. So that 100% works 10 times out of 10 as well. It just depends on the course, the guy, the, the budget and the, you know, the golf course as a whole. So to answer your question in a long way. Yeah. I love relief and I believe in a hundred percent, but I also understand when you have to laugh your way through
Trent Manning:
Well, and I think, you know, you kinda touched on it there, it depends on your course a lot too. So if your Mo in Bermuda grass, you can get away with a lot more than you can if you’re Mowen Zosia
Mike Rollins:
exactly.
Trent Manning:
does like John that athletic club Mowen Georgia, there’s not a whole lot of room for error.
Mike Rollins:
Dude, it’s an animal. I know. I don’t have to tell you, but for the listeners to have haven’t dealt with Zoysia or Meijer in general, I experienced it for the first time last year at the tour championship. And then again, this year, And it just, if you don’t have everything perfect, you just nailed it, right? Like if you don’t have everything perfect, you’re going to see every single after cut appearance, you can see my footprints, right? Like if I got down on the ground and take photos for Twitter, I could come back out an hour later and you still see my knee prints in the turf. You know, it just, it’s a gnarly turf, a man as a fun to play on. It’s a ton of fun to play on, but it’s a animal on cutting units.
Trent Manning:
Yeah. for sure. And so one of my first experiences with that is the course I’m at, we got there’s two courses and one of them, we have all Bermuda fairways, and I was accustomed to that. I’ve been doing that for years and years and years. And one of the director of agronomy put me over the course of Midtown as always a fair farewell. So I tried the same practice that I’ve been doing, which, you know, I’d like a heavy relief and lap, a little bit in-between grinds and everything was fine, but it didn’t work out so good on Xhosa. So that program is more of a ground only program
Mike Rollins:
yeah, yeah. A hundred percent you’re saying on the Georgia, right. It’s just grind only. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Ten four. And that was my experience with that Meyer. Well, obviously with JP, with his Georgia, it truly is. It’s a grind only, or also that quality of cut drops way off quickly.
Trent Manning:
Well that was my experience with Bermuda grass. You could lap and finish my one with the Georgia you lap, and we could mow about half the fairways before the cow went away.
Mike Rollins:
Interesting.
Trent Manning:
Yup. That was my experience.
Mike Rollins:
Yeah.
Trent Manning:
Tell us what your favorite tool.
Mike Rollins:
So I hate to be a Homer and sip Homer, but and to kind of steal from Tony Bevolo, it’s the pie tape, dude. It just, you saw me at east lake. It’s too fast. It’s too easy. It’s too precise to not just slap it in the real really quickly. Obviously the first time you’re going through it, find your cone, get rid of your cone, adjust for cone. And then even then, you know, going through those fixed heads, right. You and I have spoken about this, the fix has at Eastlake or, I mean, I’m not, I know a lot of guys out there running a fixed head, one eighties to twenties or two sixties from deer, even then for tournament, you know, it was just too easy to slap the pie tape in there. Even though I had pie taped it the last two times it was up there just to make sure I was keeping them. Cause we were still bawling through a ton of sand just to make sure I was keeping every single one of those 11 blade or those 11 reels within 5,000 of each other, just for tournament, Right. Like outside a tournament, you can let it fly. The pie tape, dude, it’s just, it’s too fast, too easy and too precise to just slap it in there and go. The other one, if I had to say a second one is that lift table, you and I have spoken about that, you know, like a lift table versus a hoist kind of idea. You could go almost anywhere with that hoist system without lift table. Same thing. I can pick that, that cutting ended up and go anywhere from the lift to the table from the table to the grinder. And then you don’t know how much you want it or need it or love it until you don’t have it anymore. You know, when you’re lifting team lifting a big, huge QA seven or seven inch Toro up on the grinder, man, it’s a heavy cutting in it. So that I’d say pie tape and a lift table, for sure.
Trent Manning:
for sure. What do you like best about your job?
Mike Rollins:
So it kind of touched on it a little bit earlier at the beginning with my little preface to the podcast, but it really is being able to meet. A million different equipment managers, dude. Not even just equipment managers, but agronomists in general, director of agronomy, superintendent, whatever it may be. I did the math. I can pull it up here on my laptop, but I met, I went to over 75 golf courses last year did over like 30,000 miles driving. And I got to meet a ton of people. I’ve only been in the industry for 20 months and I’ve only been on the road for literally a year at the end of east lake. Last week was a full year on the road. And getting to meet all of you guys, just you, you alone, right? Like JP, all these guys, you guys give me your knowledge and blood, sweat, and tears that you’ve earned all of this knowledge for for free, you know what I mean? You just, you want to share it with everybody. And I’ve been very, very lucky to learn a lot of stuff from you guys. Early on, very early on that took you guys a long time to learn the hard way. You know what I mean? And so to be able to go out and meet a Tony, you guys, a ton of agronomists and just keep trying to absorb as much as possible is the best part about it. I know I’m a different, I’m an outlier from who you normally interview, but that’s why I recommend when guys ask me, should I do like tournament support a thousand percent? I recommend it 10 times out of 10, you got a network. And there’s like, we talked about right. There are a million different ways to skin the cat. And I’m trying to learn all the million different ways to skin the cat. You know, it sounds cheesy and cliche, but it’s true. So it’s getting to meet all you guys and learn as much as I possibly can.
Trent Manning:
That was one of the most valuable things to me. When I worked for Jerry pay, the Toro distributor is just traveling around and meeting all the guys. I mean, and they’re out the amount of knowledge you can get. From veterans locked down. And I mean, there’s a ton of guys. I met here in Georgia. That’s been doing it for years and years and all the little things you pick up and all the things that you see in their shop. It really, and I mean, I’ve said this before, but I learned more in two years of working for them than I did, you know, 10 years working out of the golf course because at a golf course, you’re teaching yourself. Maybe you got a friend in the industry that you’re talking to, that you can bounce ideas off of, but networking is really key.
Mike Rollins:
Oh, yeah, man. When you get to go out and meet all these different guys, and like you said, just little things, right. Just can be that tipping point of something. If you’ve been working on one little thing on a cutting unit or, or some kind of theory with electrical or whatever, it may be in a one guy goes, Hey, I tried this and that sets you over the top. It’s just it’s little things, man.
Trent Manning:
Hm.
Mike Rollins:
The networking is a big, big part of it.
Trent Manning:
Well on a different note. That’s why we’re doing this podcast to try to get these ideas out and encouraging people to talk to their neighbor down the road
Mike Rollins:
Yeah, man.
Trent Manning:
find out what they’re doing.
Mike Rollins:
Yeah. I can’t remember who you were talking to. One of the podcasts, it’s actually done a lot of them where it’s like back in the day. And obviously I wasn’t here back in the day, but back in the day, it used to be like, no, no, no, this is my idea. I’m going to keep it in these 18 holes. And you know, I’m not going to share this knowledge or whatever it may be. I’m not saying in general as a whole, but just you used to have those guys. I’m sure they’re still out there, but at least my experience so far has been like, no, like this works for me or this doesn’t work for me and everybody’s been nothing but willing to share their experiences with me with, with other guys. And it’s been a ton of fun, a ton of fun.
Trent Manning:
well, I think the technician or mechanic or whatever you want to call us, or is a lot more willing to. Share their knowledge, then some superintendents
Mike Rollins:
Yeah. I could agree with that.
Trent Manning:
not know that we’re not all competitive and yeah, I want to be better than the guy down the road, but I don’t mind helping the guy down the road out either to make him better. I want us all to be better.
Mike Rollins:
right. And another guy said it in a podcast. I can’t remember who it was, but I I’ve said the same thing where it’s like, if we all get better, we all get paid more. The industry gets better. We can hire better work, you know, better help. And it’s just nothing but good for everybody. And yeah, I’m on the complete opposite side. I’m a vendor or a factory rep or whatever you want to call me. But if you guys are doing well, we’re doing well. It’s I help you help us kind of thing. And it’s just nothing but good for the industry as a whole.
Trent Manning:
Hm. What’s the strangest thing you’ve seen while on the job.
Mike Rollins:
man was thinking about that for a while, and it’s probably not strange in any way, shape or form. You guys are probably really used to it. For me being indoctrinated the way I was, you know, coming right in, getting thrown right into the fire in a good way by mark Pilger, the owner of sip and just saying, Hey man, you’re going to learn. You’re going to learn quickly. I’ve seen and again, this comes down to manpower, budget, you know golf course ideals and things like that, but I’ve been places where they’ll take a knife, I’ll get a knife, Trent, and a bed knife, and it’s, it’s gone. The shark’s teeth are, you know, a quarter inch, half an inch tall. And the knife itself has gone. It’s in the valley and they’ve just kept hammering that knife up into the real end of the reel. And I think I showed you guys a photo in my van of one of them. And I just ship it, just send it, let it mow grass. It’s going to mow. It’s going to rip the crap out of it. But it’s gonna, to quote unquote, Moe that. I get it. You know what I mean? Like, I can understand if somebody is in there by himself and he’s out mowing until 1130 in the morning he comes in, he eats lunch and then he’s gotta be in the shop. He’s just going to hammer that knife up into the reel and send it dude. And that was, that was one of the craziest things I’ve seen was, was bed knives, man. And then on top of that is and of course I could be snooty and snobby about this because it’s all I do are real is the bed knives. But I know you guys have 600 other things to focus on in that shop. And sometimes these can get put down in the bottom of the totem pole. Understandably so but I’ve seen it where they’ll take a new knife, they’ll put a new knife on the bar and put the knife in. They won’t even lap it in, not just put the knife in and go, which, Hey, it’s going to cut better than the previous knife was. That was hammered into the valley. But I’d have to say those are so far the craziest things I’ve seen.
Trent Manning:
I don’t know. I’ve seen that was usually field guys you know, municipalities, so high schools or something like that when I was working with Toro and one guy, I can’t remember where this was that, but he said, if it doesn’t cut you it’s time to reel to now. So he’d been doing that for like five years that in real, the bad now, I mean, I’ll walk over to it and you can’t even turn the real, it’s so And he’s like, yeah, it’s still cutting fine. And I mean, I always add some of the pictures of like what you’re talking about, the bed knife there, the valley is gone,
Mike Rollins:
it’s gone. There is no valley. You’re almost, you’re almost, you’re almost, cutting on the actual bed bar. You know what I mean? Like the bed bar itself is almost up into the real. I’ve seen it where a guy. I don’t remember the name. And obviously, even if I did, I wouldn’t say it on the podcast, but somebody on Twitter posted a video of a Toro fairway, or it was a greens. I think it was a greens mower. TriFlex up there and put it up there and was all excited. And it was a nightmare. For some reason it was like AF like evening mode, not an early morning, but evening Mo and they fired up the reels and it was just, it was a flame thrower, just sparks coming out of it. And I don’t know, Toro, you want light contact. They believe in The deflection and all that stuff and the turf and the blades and, and whatnot. But man, it was some heavy contact dude.
Trent Manning:
The big difference between lock, contact and sparks
Mike Rollins:
I had flames coming out.
Trent Manning:
Was the one of your pet peeves.
Mike Rollins:
Oh dude, we talked about this at east lake. I always joke this isn’t the biggest one, but it’s more of I gave Chris Lewis a hard time. He’s equipment manager at Eastlake and Eric’s the assistant tech Eric. Can’t do it, but Chris loves to work on the floor and I can’t work on the floor, man. Chris is good at it. Chris is efficient. He gets a lot of stuff done. He’ll break down cutting. And it’s on the floor. He’s boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. He’s done. And he’s good at it, but I just, it’s not even that. I don’t like it. I think maybe subconsciously I can hear my dad get off the floor, get the tools off the floor, work on a bench or something like that. But that’s one of my biggest pet peeve though, is looking for tools, Trent, I can’t stand. When I’ll have my toolbox organized or I’ll have just a work area organized. And I have a specific workflow, I think, you know, I’m very OCD ale, a headcase. And if I have to spend more than five minutes looking for a tool, I lose it, man. I’m all about efficiency and everything has a home. Everything’s organized. One thing I think of is your irrigation part that you made, that is one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen was that irrigation cart. And for the listeners out there, go to trends page. If you haven’t already, I’m sure you’ve seen, I think you still have it pinned at the
Trent Manning:
Yeah. It’s been to the top.
Mike Rollins:
Go to the top of his page, man. And it’s the sexiest irrigation cart you will ever see in your entire life. It’s so organized. It just, if I start to my OCD flares up, I just go to trends page and look at the photos of this irrigation cart. And it calms me right down, man. It’s, that’s how my brain works. Right. Is how your irrigation card is organized. And so if I have to go looking for a tool, man, that somebody picked up and used it, didn’t put it back where it belongs. I just lose my mind. And that’s my biggest pet peeve for sure.
Trent Manning:
So we were talking about this. I think this was my ninth year. I didn’t fall and tear on, I guess, last year, cause pandemic and all that stuff, but not the year at east lake. And I remember the first year I was now. They didn’t even have the lift table. They actually didn’t get the lift table until three or four years ago for them to put the walk mowers on. So they’d done them all on the ground and they’ve sat down on a creeper and roll the creeper around and was doing it that way. And they’re still holding the championships. So you can’t say they’re doing it wrong,
Mike Rollins:
right, exactly. That’s why I had to preface like, Chris is super good at it. Really efficient, nothing goes wrong, but mentally, I’m just like, I can’t do it. I can’t work on the floor, but it works to each his own. I’d like to actually see somebody comment to who works on the floor. Maybe I’ll do a poll on Twitter who works on the floor, who works on a bench. but I just, I’m the grumpy old man, dude, I think you know that too, but I can’t work on the floor. It’s just not how my brain works, I guess.
Trent Manning:
I didn’t notice when y’all were setting fairway units on the lift checking.
Mike Rollins:
yeah,
Trent Manning:
Was everybody standing up.
Mike Rollins:
yeah,
Trent Manning:
Okay.
Mike Rollins:
yeah.
Trent Manning:
Chris used to say that on a roll cart
Mike Rollins:
On the floor.
Trent Manning:
Not on the floor, but a little chair, a little
Mike Rollins:
Oh, I got ya.
Trent Manning:
and roll around and I’ve seen quite a few guys do that.
Mike Rollins:
I actually have seen that. a bunch too. I think even JPS guys over at Atlanta athletic club do that too. Depending on the machine of it’s like a triplex John Deere or something. No, his guy Jimmy or Al I think Al do it will sit on a cart and kind of put around on that if it’s been a long day or whatever it may be correct me if I’m wrong, John, but Yeah. I think that’s how they’ll do it every once in a while. And that I understand that a hundred percent I could definitely do that. Get a little tired. Just sit down on a little cart. Yeah, Just put around. But yeah. when Eric was checking him in, he would raise it all the way up And just check them standing up.
Trent Manning:
And the other thing I don’t remember. When they were doing that, or when Chris was doing that, it was a different lift though. It was actually used to be over there for the lift table. Was there, was that a different, it was a trial on lift and I don’t remember if it might not have went up all the way
Mike Rollins:
All the way.
Trent Manning:
or something like that. So they just raise it up upon us. So you could roll around under it.
Mike Rollins:
Yep.
Trent Manning:
What would be your dream job or opportunity?
Mike Rollins:
Again, I know it’s cheesy and cliche dude, but it’s this one just in the, one year I’ve been on the road, it’s been awesome to be able to meet so many people. I know I’m kind of beating a dead horse here, but it’s true, man. I get the cheat codes, man. You guys all give me all of your knowledge. And like I said, the stuff that you’ve, you know, worked really, really hard to learn. Everybody shares it with me and then I’m just trying to absorb it all and just share it to everybody else too. So I get to travel, man. Yeah. It’s hard being on the road for as long as I have been. And I’m working on that and trying to, you know, dial that back and kind of be more efficient as far as planning on time and things like that. I get to be on the road. I get to travel the country. I get to see a ton of stuff. I get to meet a ton of new people. And it really is a sweet job, man. I get to go to some really cool golf courses and see some really cool stuff that otherwise I wouldn’t be able to see if I were sitting at my desk you know, as a halfway ground. And I just telling other people what to do. So being on the road as a ton of fun, and like I said, I went to 75, it was like 78 golf courses in one year. New golf courses. So that doesn’t even include the times I repeated and went back to that same golf course. So to see that many golf courses in one year is pretty sweet and I consider myself lucky to be able to see all those and to meet a ton of new people and learn as much as I can.
Trent Manning:
Can you kind of walk us through how that works. How do you figure out what customer you’re going to go see next?
Mike Rollins:
I’m in charge of 10 dealerships east of the Mississippi that sell sip. So they will line up demos and service and training and things like that. And I go out you’ve obviously seen the van, a lot of the listeners, maybe have seen the van. If not, you can go to my Twitter page. We’ll talk about that at the end of the podcast. But that long van is full of two grinders. I have my real grinder and my bed knife grinder in there. And I can go out and do demos. I can do the training. I can do the service work. If the dealership can’t do it for us. And so that kind of gets me in the ballpark of who I need to see when I need to see them. And roughly once a month, I’ll take one big demo. And go out and see all these other courses, if they haven’t been able to go to another course or go to a dealership to see the machines. And so that’s how I get to see some cool stuff. And then obviously mark Pilger, the owner of sip has put in a lot of work before this. He’s had the company for about 33 years now. And so I get to go into like North Carolina and in the mountains and, and see some really cool stuff in North Carolina. And I mean all over the place, up in New York state. So that’s just kind of follow ups on service, but usually it’s our dealerships line, everything up and then I’ll go out and, and do a big demo trip.
Trent Manning:
The most of your dealers have SLP grinders.
Mike Rollins:
They do. Yep. That’s what we’re, we’ve been working on is getting the SAP stuff in there so that they can do all of their, customer grinds and things like that for the winter on sip get everything squared up, keep it squared up. And that’s actually, the next question is what, what do I know now that I wish I had knew on day one? Right. So the
Trent Manning:
Yeah. That’s it.
Mike Rollins:
so this is kind of a good segue, right? Is like going out to all these courses and trying to score stuff up. Let’s say it’s the dealership and they’re trying to square it up. I just learned it firsthand at Eastlake. Right? Last year at Eastlake, Anthony Hertzog was going through everything on the grinders and then this year to help Chris out, I was going through everything on the grinders. And so I just learned firsthand and I’ve experienced it a bunch already, but to see it over and over and over you and I were talking about it, standing there during the tournament, I went through those fixed at Walkman. The 180 ESL is probably three times before they stayed square. You know what I mean? Like they’re getting the crap kicked out of them on trailers. They’re bouncing up and down over the TV, you know, speed bumps and stuff like that. When you’re mowing at the effective height of cut was super, super low. When you’re moan at those Heights is that thing moves. If that rear drum moves 20 or 30,000, it’s going to mess some stuff up. So one thing I wish I knew now, or wish I knew from day one that I know now is that it’s the cutting it man, like on sip grinders, I guess, for example, when you put a mower up there, you can grind. However you want to grind, you can grind quickly, or you can really go down the rabbit hole and split hairs if you want it to, which obviously That’s what I was doing for the tournament. But I would have guys call me early on in this position that I’m in now and they would be upset with the grinder. But in reality, it. took me about three months to figure this out. They weren’t mad at the grinder. Cause the grinder is actually really, really simple to use. You were looking at it, watching me do it and stuff like that. It’s, it’s a surface plate with a grinding head built in. It’s a lay that has one single end feed in point. But what I would realize it took me three months. I was getting mad at the cutting unit, not the grinder, because what I realized is the cutting units can be, can they be very consistent, very straight. Yes, they can be. But can they also be very inconsistent and whacked out? You’re not in your head. I’m not in my head smile like a hundred percent and I’m sure the listeners can agree with that. And so it took me three months to figure that out and then experience that firsthand at Eastlake this past, two, three weeks. And it’s a matter of knowing that the cutting unit can be very whacked out and the way I describe it to guys, when I do demos or training is, and this is one thing I kind of want to, I think the industry is kind of leaning toward that. I’d actually like to see what you. Cause we weren’t touching on this a little bit while standing at one of the greens at the course, I think people are starting to realize that cutting units are whacked out and that they should fix them. Because we are going lower and Heights and Yeah, height, the cuts, just a number. But when you have greens committees and I’ve had guys tell me just a regular Joe Schmo member will walk up and be like, did you guys double Mo today? Did you backtrack? Or when’s the last time you guys a and it’s like, whoa, where are these questions coming from? I think the demand is getting a little bit higher for higher quality. And I think going through these cutting units, I tell guys it’s like preventative maintenance on your cutting units, right? Yeah, I’m gonna go in here. And it feels like I’m wasting time, you know, putting in the relief or trying to get the knife parallel or get the cutting unit parallel to the knife or the cut line. But that return on investments, tenfold, it’s basically, I’m changing the oil, I’m changing the filter. I’m changing a hydraulic line to prevent it from busting on the green, you know, things like that. That’s my personal opinion, at least how I look at it and what I’ve experienced, but I mean, would you think it’s kind of leaning that way to where, like we kind of dig in a little bit more or is it kind of always been this way for like maybe the past 10, 15 years at
Trent Manning:
no, no, And I think about, you know, when I first got into industry and 95 and yeah, we were mowing at low height to cut,
Mike Rollins:
Yeah.
Trent Manning:
but the, did it look as good? I don’t remember it looking bad back then, but I don’t know that I knew what good looked like back then either. And so we actually had this conversation today and I think the listeners and everyone can relate when they first come out with high definition TV, it was like the most amazing thing you’ve ever seen.
Mike Rollins:
Good
Trent Manning:
Like, you know, the first year, whatever. And then five years later you’re like, oh yeah, this is just the way that TV looks. And then they come out with 4k. And the first time I seen one of those, I was like, this is the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen. And then now I go in a store and I see a 4k and I’m like, yeah, it was 4k.
Mike Rollins:
Yeah.
Trent Manning:
Right? yeah. That’ll be the next thing or whatever. And I think that the golf industry is kind of went the same way. So the, the, the hotter cuts are getting lower The tolerances are a lot tighter than they used to be. The average
Mike Rollins:
I’m stealing that,
Trent Manning:
perception is what they see on TV.
Mike Rollins:
Right. Right. And I get that a lot too.
Trent Manning:
they don’t see their public course on TV every day. They see Eve like. And they say, why does my course not look like he’s like,
Mike Rollins:
Yep. And not to be cheesy or cliche on that too. It’s like, I get that a lot too, right. Trent, where it’s like, oh, well, we’re not Augusta. Or, you know, we don’t, nobody’s complaining. And it’s like, well, look, I’m not here to tell you how to run your shop or your golf course. But if we can help you to look like Augusta or to make sure nobody does complain in the future with half the work, would you guys be willing to listen to how we can make that happen? And yeah, I sound like a cheesy used car salesman, but I genuinely mean it, dude. You know, like Tucker talks about it in his podcasts and JPS the same way. I’m sure you are too. I’ve been talking to you for a few months now to getting to know you better. I know you will. If we all start to assume that we know everything we need to know, and that there’s no way for us to get better. And again, this is cheesy and cliche, but it’s true that we’ve already kind of lost the battle. You know what I mean?
Trent Manning:
oh yeah,
Mike Rollins:
and that’s, I genuinely genuinely believe in that. Like, we should always be trying to learn more, trying to get better, trying to learn more about the cutting units, just like the agronomists are learning more about turf, right? it’s a never-ending battle against turf against weather and all these other environmental things that can affect your turf. It’s the same thing for cutting units. And that’s where I kind of got thrown right into the middle of how do we really get a good grasp on these cutting units? And I’m loving every second of it, man. Trying to figure that out.
Trent Manning:
Well, we’ve talked before about my director of agronomy, Courtney young being one of the smartest people you’ve ever met,
Mike Rollins:
Yeah.
Trent Manning:
but you know, he doesn’t carry is a flack he’s smart. And every day, every day, he’s trying to get better
Mike Rollins:
Yeah,
Trent Manning:
not just damn, he’s trying to make the golf course better. He’s trying to make his managers better. His employees. Every
Mike Rollins:
Yup. Yeah. And that’s a leader, man. That’s like, that’s the definition of a leader for sure.
Trent Manning:
A hundred percent. And I’m a hundred percent with you if you’re not trying to get better every day,
Mike Rollins:
You’ve already
Trent Manning:
up and go home.
Mike Rollins:
Couldn’t agree more, dude. I wasn’t trying to curse on the podcast, but Yeah. a hundred percent. Like
Trent Manning:
You got me, you got me fired up. I try not to curse either, but I get fired up
Mike Rollins:
and roll man. The DUI DUIs. Come on out, man.
Trent Manning:
you hit a sweet spot there.
Mike Rollins:
It’s true, dude. It’s true.
Trent Manning:
Yeah. Tell us some tips and tricks.
Mike Rollins:
I have a bunch, but they’re all sip related. So to try to make them kind of general, I have one from John Deere for QA five, and I’m stealing this from Patterson I’ll put this out there and we already did the video and stuff. When we did his women’s PGA championship a couple months back, but forever for the year I was on the road, messing with QA fives. I would always try to get the knife out. I would flip it upside down or flip it, you know, butt up or face up or whatever, and slice my fingers open, trying to pull the knife out and this, that, and the other. And then with Patterson, just kind of listening and learning and standing there like a four year old watching the Jedi master work. And he puts, you know, three QA fives up on the lift table. And you know, loosens up the ear, bolts, loosens up the pivot bolt pulls the counterweight right off the QA five. And we’re talking about this as in seconds, right? It’s got all his guns set up with the sockets and stuff, and then he pulls out this like this Flathead, big, huge Flathead screwdriver that looks like it’s from 1974 with a little quarter inch piece of plywood and the QA five. If the listeners can picture this to QA, five is on both rollers. It’s sitting down and like Momo. Everything’s loose. The bolts are out and the counterweights off Patterson will lift the rear roller up slide, a one by four underneath the rear roller. And then he will take the screwdriver, put the shaft of the screwdriver on top of the ear of the bed bar and then put the tip of the screwdriver underneath the. Crossbar in the frame of the QA five, I know this is probably a terrible description, but then he will push down on that screwdriver handle, which will pop one ear out. Then he’ll go to the other side, do the same thing. And the whole bar just falls right out of the QA five. And this takes about two seconds and he’s got all three bed bars out and a total of about 48 seconds. And I just, my head, my mouth opened up and my head exploded. I was like, dude, for a year, I’ve been fighting these QA fives and slicing fingers wide open. If you guys want a better description or video visual than my terrible description here I have it on my Twitter account. I can repost it to it’ll save you a lot of time and a lot of busted up fingers for you guys out there running John Deere.
Trent Manning:
I think that was a really good one. And you described it perfectly. I get totally follow what you were saying. So I
Mike Rollins:
Then that’s all I needed.
Trent Manning:
the folks that know their way around a QA fab will know exactly what you’re talking about.
Mike Rollins:
Agreed.
Trent Manning:
And if not, they’ll go to your Twitter.
Mike Rollins:
Yeah. True.
Trent Manning:
What else were we talking about? We’re going to talk real theory.
Mike Rollins:
Yeah. man, this is a hope you guys buckle up. Cause I have no idea what I’m talking about. Jokes aside, I think for me, what I’ve experienced so far with sip it doesn’t matter if it’s sip Bernhardt or Foley or old Aries. Again, it goes back to cutting units, rigHt? if I had known from day one, the problem lies in the cutting. it all, number one, it starts with the bed bar, dude. You and I have spoken about this and not to be an sip Homer, but it’s all I know. Well I know everything else too, but as far as the other grinders go, but with sip bed knife, grinder, you’re grinding parallel to the pivot bolts, right? So we can find those bed bars that are twisted and warped. The Mount holes can be out from the center hole to the next hole can be out as much as 5,000. By the time you get out to the end, you’re talking a big, huge change. When you Mount that knife onto it, pivot bolt holes can be out. I’ve seen 28,000 at a parallel to each other, right. We’re really splitting hairs here, but we’ve been able to find that this is what causes a lot of problems and so when you’re on the bench and you’re trying to set your cut and you’re cutting on one side, but not on the other. And everything’s nice and sharp, and you know, you don’t have a cone in your reel, but you’re still not making contact on one side. It all starts in that bed bar, man. And at that point, then you start stacking, bad variable on top of bad variable. Then you’ve got knives are inconsistent, the Mount holes on knives. I was showing you the knives right at Eastlake. When I went through 35 JRM knives they can be incredibly inconsistent and it’s not to say it’s, JRM, it’s just how these things are made, whether it’s red, green, or orange it all starts with the bar, right? And so that’s been, step number one for me to figure out was let’s solve all of those problems on the grinder before it even gets to the bench and fights yet. Right. And then let’s say you fight through it on the bench and then you get out to the course and you can only Mo you know, nine holes of fairways or 18 holes of fairways before you’re on the verge of having to grind again. You know what I mean? And so because you’ve got too much contact on one side versus the other, so that’s a step number one. I’ve got a few of them in here, like four. But I mean, do you have anything you would want to touch on that? As far as like just the bed bars of bed nines go.
Trent Manning:
No, I don’t think so. I’m, thinking about it, but if,
Mike Rollins:
It always comes down to how much do you want to go down the rabbit hole, right?
Trent Manning:
Yeah, it does. I mean, I, I agree with that. You could go down there as far and as deep as you wanted to go, and obviously some of us are going to go deeper than others and. Since I don’t grind from bed, not pivot.
Mike Rollins:
Yup. Yup.
Trent Manning:
I don’t, I can’t speak a whole lot on
Mike Rollins:
True. True.
Trent Manning:
I mean, I’m just sitting here thinking, I mean, I’ve been using design bed knife grounder for 20 years and
Mike Rollins:
no problems,
Trent Manning:
I haven’t had any problems.
Mike Rollins:
right?
Trent Manning:
And, you know, I don’t know if, if it does matter that much.
Mike Rollins:
right.
Trent Manning:
So, I mean, that’s just my opinion based on my ex.
Mike Rollins:
right. And that’s why, I wanted to preface it with, there are a million different ways to skin the cat. And I think a really good example of, you know, kind of going down that rabbit hole or not was I had a customer using Bernhard and he was tactically riding parallel to the PivotTable it’s, which is really, really cool. And I guess it’d be good for the listeners out there. Especially Bob shop up there in Canada with his, with his Bernhard’s he would grind everything. And then in his Toros he would put his, let’s say seven inch. She did it for me in a demo when he wanted me to go through some stuff. And so he got everything ground, he puts the knife back in the cutting. And then just with the pivot bolts in nothing tight that your bolts aren’t in, he just rests the knife up against the real, and he’s using a PI tape to get rid of cones. And so he knows he’s cylindrical. He knows the knife is sharp and he would put the knife up to the real, and then he would use a 2000 shim or feeler gauge and run that between the real And the bed knife. And if it didn’t make contact on one side, he would then figure out the exact gap. Right. So I think he said the worst he got was like 20,000 or some crazy stuff. I’m like, dude, twisted bed bar could be twisted frame the frames twist all the time. Right. And he’s
Trent Manning:
And you said this is on a Toro.
Mike Rollins:
Yeah. It’s not a Toro. And he’s like, this is what I’m trying to fix is not having to do this extra step. You know, that takes anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour for each cutting unit. And I’ve got, you know, 50 cutting units or a hundred cutting units, whatever it is. But when I was there, it had, I think it was like an 8,000 gap. And so what he would do though, is he would put the knife back in the Bernhardt and then adjust the Bernhard with an eight hour gap and remove that out of the knife to get the knife, to contact all the way, which I thought was cool. Right? Like he’s technically grinding parallel to the pivot bolts, but the kicker was, I was like, all right, well, let’s throw it up on the sip. His frame on the Toro was twisted like 26,000. And so I got all that on twisted. Listen, the frame bolts on the Toro ground, the knife parallel to the pivot, bolts on our grinder, on the bed knife grinder. And then put it all back together. And it was contacting all the way with a 2000 feeler gauge, you know, so, and he just, he likes, he stepped back and he’s like, whoa, like not for what I did, but just for what’s in that cutting unit. That’s what I was trying to talk about earlier is it’s in the cutting unit, you know? So it’s how can we fix that? And again, you go to you, correct me if I’m wrong, you know, better than I do, 85, 90% of golf courses, they don’t care about that. Right. And it’s not something that’s worth their time and investment. Right. It’s and that’s, there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s a hundred percent. Okay. But for the guys that do want to chase that rabbit down the hole, I’m there, man. That’s the stuff I like. That’s the stuff I’m into. And again, we can grind quick. We can grind slow, but I like to, I like to fix the cutting and it’s for sure.
Trent Manning:
Well, yeah. And I think I cut in unit. The, do you have that issue on, you got to do something with, I mean, otherwise you’re just wasting bed knives,
Mike Rollins:
Yeah. And you’re kicking the can down and you’re kicking the problem down the road. Exactly. The second thing I want to talk about was, yeah, it was twisted frames will cause that all the time. I’ve had a John Deere, again, it doesn’t matter if it’s red, green, or orange. It was out of parallel. The reel was out of parallel to the front roll, or I think it was like 128,000 over an eighth of an inch. Right. And I just looked at the customer. I was like, is this Moe and greens? And he’s real quiet. He just nods his head. He’s like, yeah. And so we got that squared up, right? We got it parallel to the front roller, got parallel to the rear roller and we set it back down on the grinder. Right. Which is a, is a 2000 flat surface plate and it still had a rock in it. So loosen the frame, bolts. It had the pins in it and everything. And you can physically see it even with Toros where you and I have spoken about this with Toros 90% of Toros when you loosen the frame bolts, at least is what I’ve been taught. And it’s actually what I’ve experienced. You loosen the frame bolts. You can physically see and hear the Toro settle back down, and let both rollers settle down on that surface plate. But John Deere’s will do it. Twisted frames, dude. They’ll you’ll be chasing ghosts trying to get your cut. Right. And it could just simply be a twisted frame. And so that was another thing I wanted to kind of talk about. I mean, I could talk about that for hours, but it’s how far do you want to go down these rabbit holes? You know the third thing is angles are underrated dude, on bed knives. Would you agree with that?
Trent Manning:
Explain why they’re underwriting.
Mike Rollins:
So you and I were already talking about this a little bit last week and this is more for the listeners, which you guys all probably know more than I do too. But man, when you find the right angles, right Y over four seasons, he and I were talking about this last week as well. When you find those right angles, let’s say on your top face of your bed knife, and let’s say you put 10 degrees on the top face and seven on the front for whatever knife you’re running and you go out and mow on whatever turf you’re mowing and it comes back in and your rifle. In the middle of your top, face your knife, your angles. Aren’t a hundred percent correct. Right. Trent, would you agree with that? So then you want to add a little more angle to it, right? So let’s say you go to like a 12 degree top face and you keep your front the same for whatever reason. And so then you go out and mow again, few times, whatever you come back in, and you’re still not quite at the front of that top face, right? You want to see that? I learned this from JP over at Atlanta athletic club. You want like, literally what I’ve experienced the best result has been like a fingernail thickness of where on that top face of that knife on the front edge of that top face of that knife. Because you and I talked about this trend, there is too much relief on that knife on that angle. You can go too far. So you’re always trying to find that sweet spot. But let’s say you go to 13 degrees on your top, face, you go out and mow a bunch comes back in and you’re aware lines. Perfect. right, You’ve got that nice. Fingernail thickness of where from left to right. leading to trailing that’s a sweet spot, right? That’s at least been my experience. That means you’ve been sharing that blade of grass at that cut point on that knife, the way that knife is designed to shear with that real collecting all that turf and stuff, and just sharing that right across. I don’t want to see that knife wearing in the middle of the top face. Cause then that means that leaf blade is getting folded over the edge of that knife. It’s not shearing at the cutting edge of the knife. And then the reel is technically pinching it in the middle of the knife and ripping it, you know? And so I’ve experienced that a lot in the field and doing demos and training is I’ll ask guys, Hey, what are your angles in there? They’ll be like, oh, I don’t know. And so that’s what I’m working on a lot is trying to help people understand how important angles are. So I know, you know, a trend,
Trent Manning:
Yeah. Well, no, I know. And one thing, I’m glad you brought this up because
Mike Rollins:
Okay.
Trent Manning:
one thing that I’ve noticed and. Strangest place. I picked it up was John Dewitt. He’s currently the field manager or athletic manager at university of Alabama.
Mike Rollins:
Yeah.
Trent Manning:
But before that, he was at Georgia tech and I was working with Toro and he was one of our accounts. I was going by and servicing the mowers all the time. And, it shows up a lot more on rye grass, but you know what I’m fixing to say?
Mike Rollins:
Yeah.
Trent Manning:
He said, yeah, these mowers, they’re not cutting good at all. You’re gonna have to grind them, laugh them, do something they’re not gutting good. And I was like, how do you know, they’re not cutting. Get, he says, look at the bed knives. So I look at the bed knife and what he was talking about is the chlorophyll is getting squeezed out of the leaf blade and
Mike Rollins:
Yeah.
Trent Manning:
and builds up to the bed knife and you know, so it was just funny. That I learned that from a field guy and not, not, I’m not knocking field guys because they’re great and they’re good at what they do. But I thought I would have learned that from another mechanic or a director of agronomy, you know, something like that. But.
Mike Rollins:
It’s crazy, dude. It really is. And like I said, obviously depends on how far the listeners want to go down the rabbit holes, but I love going down the rabbit hole because this is it’s new stuff. Not to sound super cheesy, but it’s like the last frontier. Right. You know, like it’s the last part of cutting and it hasn’t really been dug into yet. And I love being lucky enough to fall right into it and trying to chase these rabbits down the hole. Cause it’s fun. We figure out some cool stuff. And we make people’s lives a lot easier doing it. Angles, man. It just angles are so vital. And I feel like just in my personal experience on the road so far, it’s been a very underrated aspect of cutting edge theory that I would love to help educate more on, I mean, there’s still a bajillion, more that. things I need to learn on it too. But. So far I think it’s just, it’s pretty underrated as far as how important they are.
Trent Manning:
Let’s keep talking about angles. What have you found on angles from manufacturers?
Mike Rollins:
So it’s
Trent Manning:
When you’re grinding them, so you get a brand new bed. Now, if you bolted up, what you know, is it at what the manufacturer is saying? Is that.
Mike Rollins:
Dude, it’s been all over the map, man. It doesn’t matter. Like, I think the JRS we were putting on these fixed said one eighties that we got, and obviously they have a million different part numbers for that too. But they were at like 14 from the factory. Like we tried to match them just to see what they were.
Trent Manning:
Yeah. Yeah. Yep.
Mike Rollins:
And they were like, dude, they were like 14. So us putting in, I think it was like 13 or 12. I think it was 12. I can’t remember a top face. And he goes, I have it written down in my notes, but yeah, we were actually nice and on the front edge, so we didn’t have to go too far down. So that was nice relief that we didn’t have to match that 14, but no, that’s, that’s all over the map, man. at least in my personal experience so far it doesn’t matter if it’s after market or actual manufacturer. I’d say the Toros have been pretty solid as far as matching what it’s supposed to be in the book. But my experience, again, learning from a ton of guys. And going through it too, has been, it’s like, hi to cut. Right. I was talking about this with somebody yesterday. It’s kind of just a number to get you in the church, right. You’re just kind of sitting in a different pew until you can go out, check the turf, check your ball, roll your speed, your consistency, your quality of cut your after cut appearance, all of these different aspects and factors before you can really dial it in even farther. And I feel the same way about angles, right? Like I’ve done a demo where it was Toro. And the gentleman said three degrees top and it was like nine front or so. I can’t remember what the front was, but it was by the book, right. For that model
Trent Manning:
on the front.
Mike Rollins:
13 front. and three top or something. Right. Yeah, You know, better than I
Trent Manning:
well, yeah, that’s for a standard grains knife, three
Mike Rollins:
So that’s what we, we did. And we put it back together. Right. And ground, everything parallel got everything squared. It was still ripping. Right. And he like panicked. He’s like, see, this is what happened with, you know, the other grinders and et cetera, et cetera, and said, no, no problem. Let’s add, you know, we could probably go, let’s go to seven on the top and see what it looks like. He’s like, no, no, no. This is the book. He’s a very by the book guy. And I’m like, well, look, it’s just, we’re in the state. And we just want to get to the right spot. Right. I should’ve ran out of analogies for them, but we put seven degrees on the top. And even while it was grinding, I was like, we could probably go to nine on the top and still be okay. Just to, based off of how it was rifling before or how it was wearing before. When he was trying to get it to set, cut, pulled it out at seven degrees. And then on the Toro, he did this. On the Toro with no contact, just to see what it did. I know they recommend like contact. It was shearing all the way across. And that, that goes back to the board of angles. Right? Like share the book called for it. But for whatever reason, there was something else weird going on in his environment, his cutting units, for whatever reason, those angles just didn’t work. And so he ended up going with seven and 13. I think he ended up going to eight and 13 and he’s been happy there ever since.
Trent Manning:
And one reason I asked that, and obviously I’m using a Foley grinder and I believe the. Is, and Chad, Ron would be the person to talk to about this. I think he is the expert on this and I hope to have him on the podcast one day.
Mike Rollins:
I can’t wait to
Trent Manning:
yeah. Is in the works. That’s when I’ll ask him this question too, but I do remember talking to some of the guys at Foley and it’s something to do with the camp of the ground and whale you know, cause it’s Canon. So it grinds on the left side of the stone that it throws the angle off a couple degrees
Mike Rollins:
On the real or on the bed knife?
Trent Manning:
on the bed enough?
Mike Rollins:
On the bed knife.
Trent Manning:
Yeah, just on the bed knife. So when you’re grinding in that top angle and Foley says set at a three, I’m usually setting it at five
Mike Rollins:
Yeah.
Trent Manning:
my minimum for that one because I’ve found the same thing. If I said it at three, there’s not enough relief back.
Mike Rollins:
Right. I remember Chad posting about that on Twitter. The other thing too is even on CBNs right. I mean, for all you listeners out there doesn’t matter the stone. It doesn’t matter. The grinder manufacturer, keep them dressed and keep them flat and yeah. I mean, I’ve seen it top face stone on a CVN on our grinder. They called me and they’re like, Hey, something’s wrong. We’re kind of ripping. We’re not sharing on a fresh grind. And we’ve raised angles up, raised angles up, raised angles up. I learned this last year for a big tournament. I went in and looked and I was like, Hey, when’s the last time you changed or rotated on our grinder. You want to rotate your CVN from the top face to the front face because on a full end of Bernhard, you’d just do that naturally every time you grind, because we’re grinding both faces at the same time, the stones stay as is. So Patterson’s better at this than me. He’s got a better number. I’d say maybe six months, depending on how often you’re grinding. You just rotate that, that top face stone with your front face stone. And it kind of redresses it back. to flat because that stone is tough for the listeners to see this, because I can’t do a visual over the audio, but that stone, obviously, Trent, you know, it will start to wear. Right. And so that’s a five degree difference right there. They had a five degree difference just from the stone wearing. So that’s how vital it is just to keep your stones dressed and flat because you can get different angles from that. But Yeah. the way I can see the way it’s canted can do it too. Even the whole like forward and back, right. I would love to have literally like a round table discussion with guys who know way more than I do about this stuff. But you have your real, too far forward on center line or a little farther back behind center line. When you’re doing your real spin grinding, you can get, I’ve been told by a lot of very knowledgeable guys in the industry, a one to two degree difference in your relief on that reel, but there’s only so far that circle can go inside that circle before you’re fully, or my sip has to use a different stone to add more degrees of relief. Correct.
Trent Manning:
Yes, I
Mike Rollins:
You follow me, you know what I mean? That’s what I’ve been told, you know what I mean? Like I haven’t gone in there with measuring devices and things like that, but I’ve had guys say they only grind with the real forward in front of center line on the stone. I’ve had guys say they only grind behind center line. But at sip we recommend from factory that you go top dead center because when you parallel, you’re paralleling off the lowest sweeping point of that reel. But you can grind however you want on ours. I know Bernhardt you can, you, they want you to leave the knife in there. And so you have to push it back behind center line, which does add what I’ve been told a degree or two, maybe three degrees of relief for that real blade. But at the end of the day, if you want more than that, you got to put a different stone on
Trent Manning:
If I remember correctly boldly grinds in front of center line
Mike Rollins:
front of center.
Trent Manning:
yes. The way they tell you to set it up.
Mike Rollins:
Ten four. Yeah, You can grind however you want on the sip, but yeah. I like to tell people to go talk to that center just so you parallel off that lowest sweeping point in that reel.
Trent Manning:
makes sense. You got any more angles you want to talk about?
Mike Rollins:
Yeah, man. Hold on. There was one more,
Trent Manning:
Before you get to that, have you played with front angles?
Mike Rollins:
Front face.
Trent Manning:
yeah. Front
Mike Rollins:
Yeah, I’ve tinkered with them, but I don’t have it as a, what’s the word I’m looking for? Just under control as I do top face yet. And Patterson’s obviously been a big proponent of teaching me a lot of that stuff. And again, you can go too far, right? Like there’s you got to find the sweet spot for his Georgia. Sorry, John, if I butcher this, but I don’t remember his number. On like the Xeon or the Zuora, but I think he’s at like something aggressive it’s like 14 or something like that. I can’t remember. It could be way off, but obviously depending on those angles, you want that leaf blade to kind of break over that break point and sheer properly. The front face, if you’re too blunt, actually. Yeah. Prime example, right? The fixed heads at east lake, right. Where as you get smaller and real diameter on your fixed head walk mowers that knife, that old button design on the John Deere fixed head. That knife. It’s not a DPA, right? You can’t get that knife Any farther forward up to that center line. And that cut line, or, sorry, the center line of the really add to your, you bring your cut line farther forward, or like the QA fives where you flip your centric and you can get the real, the knife out farther. Those fix heads. Dude, as that reel gets smaller, I was actually talking about this with Charlie Aubrey, the superintendent. And he’s like, as that reel gets smaller, and this is just us experimenting and thinking out loud the other day, you might want to start thinking about changing the Front face. angle because that knife is going to get flatter and flatter and flatter, right? Which technically in normal theory makes you less aggressive, but technically you’re becoming more knife aggressive, right? That front face turns into a snowplow. And if you’re basically standing up way more turf than you really want to, or what you desire, you’re going to be cutting right at that stem or right at the root. So, you gotta be really careful and that’s what. yeah, Are we splitting hairs? sure. But when there’s $46 million on the line, sometimes you gotta split those hairs. And, and we learned that we learned that with these fixed heads, the smaller that reel gets, the more of that front face of that knife gets pretty daggum aggressive
Trent Manning:
So just to clarify, As the reel gets smaller, the is good
Mike Rollins:
on the fixed heads.
Trent Manning:
all the fixed head Is getting more aggressive.
Mike Rollins:
The knife is because it’s the angles of that knife is starting to, like I said, turn into a snowplow. And so when you put that bigger reel in which I know, I thought the same way too, until Patterson showed me a few other guys showed me we love using the whiteboard. I wish I could use a whiteboard for the listener. So I probably sound like I’m blowing smoke, but I promise using a whiteboard, it would make sense, but making that real. And bringing that knife back up to that aggressive angle, we were able to lower Heights, 25 lower this year versus last year at Eastlake when the reel was smaller. So the real, the best way to put it is it’s just becoming more efficient. Like we went from being knife aggressive to now we’re real aggressive, if that makes any sense. And so what we did was when we put the new reels in, we put brand new knives into that were super, super tournament, extended knives. There were the longest ones from JRM. You saw them right where we held up the, the extended John Deere to it. And it was even longer than the extended John Deere. Yeah. The knife was flatter, which technically in theory should become less aggressive. But as that reel gets smaller, that knife is still getting more aggressive. But then you put a bigger, real in, it gets more real aggressive. So we put new knives in to extend that cutline back forward to make that the most efficient cutting unit as possible. And you saw it right? You posted the tweet of us with the prism and I don’t want to give away numbers, but we
Trent Manning:
yeah. It was amazing.
Mike Rollins:
dude, we were, we were, Charlie said it right superintendent at east, like we were riding the lightning dude. And it was a ton of fun, but you are literally URS knees away from scalping from having issues with that cutting unit. And that’s why it was just so vital to go down those rabbit holes for tournament at least
Trent Manning:
Yeah. no, I agree. And yeah, when you’re that close, a lot of it can just be an operator, you know, he drops his blower too hard. And then your
Mike Rollins:
And it’s tough. That’s one thing for the listeners too, is if there were like a piece of advice that I could give, it’s literally again, stolen right out of JPS book. Cause he’s my mentor, but you can have cutting units. Perfect. Right? Like you can have it the most dialed in it’s ever been. Right. The agronomist can have the turf, the healthiest it’s ever been there will still be factors and variables out there that you just cannot control. And the sooner you AKA me, because I’m the worst about it can understand that and be ready for it. The better you’re going to sleep at night. So that’s one piece of advice that I learned pretty quickly from JP. yeah.
Trent Manning:
Yeah. And I think you still have a little room to grow
Mike Rollins:
Oh for
Trent Manning:
on that first year because a lot of it gives the operator or a tariff related and Mike’s getting in a frizzy say, ah, I’m ready to grind again.
Mike Rollins:
yeah. We got a fish, put it on the grinder dudes. It’s like scratching my neck, like a like a fiend. Yeah. A hundred percent. And then last thing though. Cause I know we’re at the hour I think, but we talked about this at the beginning. I really do again. that I’m not wearing my sip hat and I’m not being politically correct, you know, with your golf course and your shop and your budget and manpower. But I really am a big fan of relief dude, when it comes to cutting unit theory it’s just less heat, less where it doesn’t Dole as quickly, quality cut stays up. And then that combined with being totally parallel, dude, it just, and having the angles. Right. It’s just, it feels really good to get that dialed in and to experience that at east lake, having all of that kind of like come together, literally on like Tuesday of turning week, right? Like we quit Moe and sand finally. And greens mowers stayed square finally. And they weren’t getting whacked out Timo or is he. But to see that on those fairways, that, or is your fairways. That was, I think for me personally, really good for me and my career to, to experience that and to see that after cut appearance, hold up the quality of cut, hold up. And just as far as the cutting unit theory aspect goes to finally put all that together, it felt good. So I like cutting your theory, man. It’s a ton of fun and hopefully this is just the beginning.
Trent Manning:
Yeah. Yeah, no, we’re gonna, we’re going to keep rolling with it. I want to get deeper. I only been doing this 20 years and I’m ready to go deeper and to
Mike Rollins:
Let’s rock dude.
Trent Manning:
and play, play, with angles and all that kind of stuff. I’ll do on
Mike Rollins:
a round table. Sorry. Sorry. I just really, I do want to do like a big round table will be a ton of fun.
Trent Manning:
yeah, we’re definitely going to be doing a round table and plan on for anybody that’s coming to GIS in San Diego is doing some kind of round table. Yeah, just a little podcast and just shoot the breeze and see what we can learn from each other.
Mike Rollins:
I’m down to just sit down and I know some of you guys don’t believe me, out there, but I can shut my mouth and just listen for a little bit. So
Trent Manning:
Tell me,
Mike Rollins:
and I’ll, I’ll keep Dewayne down.
Trent Manning:
tell me how awesome some of those approaches.
Mike Rollins:
Oh, what an east lake.
Trent Manning:
Yes at east lake. I can’t remember the grass, the laser, one of them was laser. One of them was something else. And they told
Mike Rollins:
is this?
Trent Manning:
were mowing at like this high height, which, I mean, wasn’t that high. And I don’t know if they want us to tell you how high or not, but I’ll tell you it was below a half inch and it looked like it was one 50,
Mike Rollins:
Oh
Trent Manning:
but it wouldn’t near that low.
Mike Rollins:
Is it? I want to be careful.
Trent Manning:
so tight.
Mike Rollins:
oh dude, the laser, I don’t even know. Are we allowed to tell this story? I feel bad if we tell the story with Chris and the approach.
Trent Manning:
No, I think it’s fine, crystal understand? Okay.
Mike Rollins:
Oh, it’s fine to talk about it.
Trent Manning:
yeah, yeah. That’d be
Mike Rollins:
All right. Well, I’ll sorry, Chris, if you hear this love you dude. But Yeah. he had a little slip up on height. The cut on lasers, Xhosa. this is always you’re right. Laser is a Xhosa.
Trent Manning:
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There’s like a, like a old ultra Dorf.
Mike Rollins:
Yeah. it’s the only place I’ve seen it is that east lake and they were out Mo and, and he’s like, man, this is, this is tight. This looks really good. And we found out after that, he had said it, the height, the cut different. And it was basically at a green site and it did, it looked really good. and it held up really, really well. And what did he say? It was the Bob Ross joke, right where it’s a, it’s a happy mistake. And
Trent Manning:
Yes.
Mike Rollins:
It really was, man. Sometimes those mistakes can be happy mistakes. And I was like, well, maybe we start mowing these at this site from now on. yeah,
Trent Manning:
yeah, no, it was, it was amazing. And the other ones that didn’t get mowed that live, it was still incredible. How tied it was for the hot hi Ramona.
Mike Rollins:
they had it’s Charlie, right? It’s Ralph Keppel, director of agronomy. Charlie’s a superintendent bland. Cooper’s the PGA tour. Agronomist just, they had that place after last year, you know, with some issues here or there. And Charlie’s so freaking smart, man. He’s been talking about, you know, like the clay issues they have in the soil and how to combat the clay. I don’t know if I’ve met a smarter person than Charlie and bland together. That root man, a, that turf was so healthy before we even got the cutting units dialed in. And the quality of cut dialed in that turf could have taken anything you threw at it, man. They just that team as a whole, that whole crew, it’s nothing but fun to work there. And I set it on Twitter. I’ll say it again here too. That was my first big tournament experience was last year with them and they were nothing but welcoming and warm. Again, this year was a ton of fun. I miss those guys. Like I said, I should get in trouble for how much fun I got to have at that tournament. But still working the hardest I’ve ever worked in my entire life, but it was worth it, man, for sure.
Trent Manning:
I really enjoy the culture that they’ve built there.
Mike Rollins:
Yup.
Trent Manning:
the passion that they have for agronomy is just unbelievable. And
Mike Rollins:
sure.
Trent Manning:
as, a breath of fresh air, working with people like that,
Mike Rollins:
I couldn’t agree. More breath of fresh air is a perfect way to put it in. I know we talked about it before, but for the listeners, if you get an opportunity to do tournament support anywhere, I don’t care if it’s PGA, LPGA, Korn ferry, tour wa senior tour, whatever it is, do it, because I like to say it’s a hyper concentrated amount of free knowledge and experience with guys like Trent John Patterson, Howard horn, in the shop. And then on top of that, you have the agronomist to last year, even with bland and with Charlie and Ralph, Ralph was in the middle of stamping on like Thursday tournament. Right. And I’m like, Hey Ralph, you mind if I just kind of hover? He’s like, yeah, come on, man. Let’s go, you know, like listen to all my questions. And I answered all my questions. You know, why is grass green wire? Why is the sky blue? You know? And he answered every question. So I would a thousand percent recommend it. And tournament life is it’s a lot of work, man. And to have that kind of culture that they have, you’re in tournaments mode 365 days a year. And for those guys to be as happy as they are says a lot to the culture that Ralph has been able to build there over the what? 29 years. How long has he been there?
Trent Manning:
That sounds about right. So somewhere around there. Yeah. 92 93 is when he started, I think.
Mike Rollins:
Yeah. man. It’s impressive to say the least.
Trent Manning:
Yeah. That’s awesome. Well, tell the listeners how they can get ahold of you
Mike Rollins:
Okay. So I was just pulling it up on my phone.
Trent Manning:
tell the listeners how they can get ahold of D one.
Mike Rollins:
The way well, Dewayne is actually blocked out at Twitter right now. did I tell you that? Did I tell you? Oh yeah.
Trent Manning:
I got to hear
Mike Rollins:
went and got DUI? Got locked out of Twitter, dude. So
Trent Manning:
Are you in Twitter jail
Mike Rollins:
D Wayne is in Twitter jail for like the rest of this week and we don’t know why they didn’t tell me why or sorry. They didn’t tell Dewayne why he got locked out of Twitter. I think I read the rules for Dewayne. If you impersonate like people or a culture or something like that, you can be blocked. My personal opinion my gut says somebody very important either at Eastlake or with the tour championship or the PGA may have reported Dewayne because Dewayne is a bad, a bad look, but he’s a lot of fun. So whoever locked him out should, should get to know Dewayne. He’s a good guy.
Trent Manning:
Okay. All right.
Mike Rollins:
So you can, you can find me on Twitter at Mike Rollins sip that’s R O L L I N S and then you can find Dewayne. Let’s see. Yeah, I’m still locked out. After careful review, we determined your account broke the Twitter rules and I can’t tweet retweet or like anything as Dewayne.
Trent Manning:
Dang what a
Mike Rollins:
yeah, no, right. It’s a shame dude, to lock down an energetic character like that is. nothing but bad for this industry, dude, nothing for bad, bad, things happen, Trent.
Trent Manning:
We got a lot of entertainment out of the wine.
Mike Rollins:
DUI. It’s fun, but Dewayne, I got pumped the brakes with, and he’s good in little doses, just little teaspoons full. If you do a full tablespoon or cup full it’s too much Dewayne but you can find Dewayne at D E Wayne. Grinds on Twitter. It’s G R I N D E Z at the end of it. So, but he’s just beginning. And then I think my final note though, dude not to get serious, cause it is it’s cool, but it’s serious, but what you’re doing here with the podcast, man, everybody said it at the end of their, their podcast interview with you was trying to get the word out there for this position, you know, to get the right help in here to help grow the industry. And you and I were talking about it while you were having these interviews and I’d been wanting to make that video series, about the equipment manager position and for the listeners out there, man, Trent is doing all kinds of work that, not a lot of other people are doing. There are people doing it, but you know what I mean? He’s, he’s really putting a lot of heart and soul into it. And this podcast is, this is a lot of work. He showed me his notes and his is grid on who he’s got in his notes and things like that and trans working hard. So if we can keep helping them. You know, share the podcast, share whatever we can on Twitter for it and try to get the word out there outside of the industry would be nothing but good too. So I’ll keep making videos. I got to figure out who I’m going to film next, but we’ll keep working on it together, man, and help grow this industry in this position.
Trent Manning:
Thank you so much for all the nice words. I do want you to talk about your video for a minute, because it was freaking amazing. There was, it was, incredible.
Mike Rollins:
It’s just, it started out, it was just kind of like JP John Patterson at Atlanta athletic club is literally the guy that picks up the phone. Every time I call he’s been nothing but helpful. He’s never had an attitude with me asking the same fricking question 48 times. And it kind of started out like, Hey, I kind of want to just do a little tribute to him. Then it turned into as I was in the industry more and learning very quickly, very quick. That the position is, is what’s the word I’m looking for? It’s it’s it’s just not as sexy, right? Like people don’t think it’s, it’s a very great job to have. Cause it doesn’t get all the attention it deserves. Right? Like, which it doesn’t get a lot of attention, which it deserves a lot of attention. I kind of put two and two together of like, well, my background is film and media. I wanted to make the video about John anyways, as a thank you, you know, for him putting all the work into me and helping train me and things like that. And it just kind of worked out to be the perfect storm of like, I want to help you started the podcast pretty much at the same time. And I was like, yeah, dude, like, cause obviously, yeah. it can, you can say it comes from a selfish spot where it’s like, yeah. if you guys aren’t doing well, we don’t do well as a grinding company, but it’s us helping you help us kind of thing. And if you guys aren’t doing well, I’m not doing well. My career isn’t doing well. So I just want to help continue to elevate the position. And that was what that video was. Was just trying to get that it’s a thankless job, right. And I wanted to get that attention to it. You guys, along with the agronomists, you work the craziest hours, dude in golf, it really is a tournament or not. I set it on Twitter the other night, just golf in general, you guys work harder hours, longer hours. Not all of you have the help you deserve and that you need, you know, and so that’s got to change. and so that video series, along with this podcast, trying to accomplish the same thing, which is just getting the word out there that, Hey, this is a great position. This is a great career to have. yeah, We’re competing with, you know, the military and automotive dealerships and things of that where, you get all these 401k benefits, things like that, but you’re only, you’re literally working on the same transmission every single day. Right. You’re working on the same valves every single day and I’m not knocking those industries. They’re great. What I like. It’s kind of similar to what I did growing up. Right? Like I’m not a true quote unquote mechanic, right? I’m not certified in anything like, but I grew up in a shop. If you needed help, I could help you with pretty much anything you’re working on. And my point in saying that is in this industry, in this position you’re working on, right? Like two stroke, four stroke, diesel gas, heavy, heavy duty. You’re working on sprayers. You’re working on GPS are working on electronics and all these different aspects. Yes, that’s a lot. And yes, the industry needs to pay you for that a hundred percent, but trying to look at it a different way. The way I look at it is if I’m coming into this industry and I’m 20 years old, right. Or I’m a college dropout or a college graduate, right. I didn’t like my industry. I mean, look at me. I wasn’t filming media now I’m back in the shop. Right. And I love every second of it. The way I look at it is this is an opportunity to, and Patterson. And I talked about this in his video. His video literally could have been 49 minutes. It could have been an hour long, but I had to trim her down for Twitter, but he talks about this. So I’m stealing this from YouTube, John, but it’s true. You guys can learn two stroke, four stroke, all these different aspects. And then literally let’s say trans wife or my wife or whomever has to go out to Colorado for whatever reason. I’m literally like I’m in a medical profession. I can literally work anywhere as an equipment manager. You know what I mean?
Trent Manning:
for sure. Yep.
Mike Rollins:
it’s the same as a nurse or a doctor. You can literally work almost anywhere. And if you put in what Trent you correct me if I’m wrong, 18 months, maybe two years, I would say in 18 months, I would like to think I could pretty much have a solid enough resume to almost work anywhere. Or do you think it would be maybe two years, three years to just be able to really work anywhere
Trent Manning:
this is my opinion. I think three years with the right guy. And you can be a head guy pretty much anywhere you want to be.
Mike Rollins:
True. Yeah. See, I wasn’t even going for head guy. I was just saying you could literally get a job anywhere, but yeah, three
Trent Manning:
Oh yeah. Well, I mean, if you put in six months working for John Patterson and you moved to California, you can get a job in any shop. You might not be the head guy, but you easily get it. Yeah,
Mike Rollins:
dude, a hundred percent and rolling MacPherson said something really, really cool. If you guys want to get like, not grieve, but just like get some confidence in some motivation, the industry is so small, right? It’s it’s so it’s big, but it’s small. It’s a niche, right? Like it’s 15,000 golf courses, roughly there are probably 15,000 dealerships in the Southeast alone, right. For car
Trent Manning:
no. Yeah, for sure.
Mike Rollins:
if you go to a golf course as an equipment manager technician, you can climb that ladder so quickly and be so well-known like I said, this is coming from like a selfish kind of like motivational standpoint, but you can climb the ladder so well so quickly and be so well-known that alone, I think would be motivating for somebody to come to this industry and you can talk to a lot of people you can, you know just share a lot of knowledge and gain a lot of. Just from that aspect alone. So I just, there are a lot of really cool aspects about this career, about this industry the career of equipment manager, that is our technician. And I’m here with you, man. I’m following your lead. Keep doing the podcast. I gotta find time, but I’ll, I’ll make a video here soon. I got to make another one. Just kind of find some time to do it.
Trent Manning:
Yeah, no, we’re, we’re looking for to the next video.
Mike Rollins:
Yeah, man.
Trent Manning:
Bring it on. All right. That’s a wrap.
Mike Rollins:
Hell yeah. Thanks Trent.
Trent Manning:
I really
Mike Rollins:
I appreciate it.
Trent Manning:
I hope you enjoyed hearing from Mike. It’s always fun talking to him. And I want to thank him. For all the passion and excitement he brings to the industry. Although it’s easy for a lot of. A lot of us, that’s been in the industry for a long time. To get complacent. And just go through the daily grind every day. Like we do. But as guys lock. Mike, the help us. Grow and be inspired. And I can’t wait to see his next video because the first one was amazing. Well until next week. thank you so much for listening to the real turf techs podcast. I hope you learned something today. Don’t forget to subscribe. If you have any topics you’d like to discuss, or you’d like to be a guest, find us on Twitter at real turf techs.