Charlotte, NC - May 9, 2008 - The Bay Hill Club and Lodge in Orlando, Fla., has become synonymous with championship golf because of its prominent reputation, extensive television coverage, and, most recently, for the Sunday heroics of the world's best golfer. As the flagship course of Arnold Palmer Golf Management, which operates 43 courses and private clubs around the country, course conditions at Bay Hill are highly scrutinized and held to the toughest of standards.
Consistently touted by Golf Digest as one of the nation's top golf resorts and one of the finest courses in Florida, Bay Hill was opened in 1961 and has been known as a premier course since the legendary Arnold Palmer adopted it as his winter home over 30 years ago. The course has always attracted some of the world's top golfers and has become the annual host of one of the elite tournaments in all of professional golf – the PGA Tour's Arnold Palmer Invitational, won in dramatic fashion this year by Tiger Woods.
Known for its beauty, its challenging layout and for having one of golf's toughest finishing holes, Albert Sizemore, the equipment manager at Bay Hill for the past 16 years, and his crew rely on the finest equipment and plenty of hard work to keep Bay Hill playing up to its reputation.
“We do have to crank it up and fine tune the conditions a little bit for the big tournaments like the PGA Tour's Arnold Palmer Invitational each year,” Sizemore said. “But we also keep it in great shape, playing tough for our members who are out here each day.”
Bay Hill has used Jacobsen turf maintenance equipment exclusively on its course since the early 1990s, and agreed to serve as a test site for the new Jacobsen AR-3 rotary trim mower during the final stages of the design process in 2007.
Linton Lewis, a Jacobsen engineer in charge of the AR-3, spent months working closely with Sizemore and his crew, creating a final product that Sizemore would put up against any other rotary on the market.
“Linton was here working for weeks at a time, adjusting the arches in the deck design, the cutting units and everything else to make sure that they were absolutely perfect down to a fraction of an inch,” he said. “We received one of the first production models last summer, and we immediately started using it, running it hard almost every day. In terms of the overall performance and the quality of the cut, I really think it is the best mower of its size out there and it's probably a better machine than a lot of the bigger rotaries too.”
Some of the performance features on the AR-3 include a traction system ideal for hilly terrain, TrimTek cutting decks with a lift and downdraft blade design, and a service-free brake system with an electric parking brake for better control.
“As part of the testing process, we brought in comparable units from the major equipment manufacturers,” Sizemore explained. “In terms of cut, power and dispersement of the grass, the AR-3 outperformed all of the others easily. Jacobsen really did a lot of thinking with this mower, and came up with a great machine.”
Sizemore said one of the things he and his crew had to get used to with the AR-3 was that the operator's seat is a lot lower than those found on most competing models.
“It feels like you are really close to the ground, almost like driving a sports car,” he said. “But being that low allows you to sneak under some trees that other mowers can't get by, and it really gives you a lot of traction.”
The hill-climbing ability is among one of many benefits that Bay Hill is enjoying from having the AR-3 as a part of its fleet. For anyone who has played the course or seen it on television, some of the most prominent landscaping features are the steep grassy slopes surrounding many of the bunkers, notably those guarding the 18th green.
“Because of the traction control and the deck design, we are able to effectively cut on slopes where other machines can't go, and that is a major benefit, especially with the layout of this course,” Sizemore said.
Overall, Sizemore and his crew have been extremely impressed with the AR-3 because of its cutting ability; durability and improved traction compared to other three-wheel drive mowers.
“We got it in last summer, and we have already put close to 1,000 hours on it,” he said. “Most days, it runs pretty steadily from 8 o'clock in the morning to 3 o'clock in the afternoon. It's one of those rare machines that you can trust to go out and cut without having to worry about a whole lot back here in the maintenance shop. It's just been great for us, a very fine rotary.”
About Jacobsen
Jacobsen manufactures a full range of turf maintenance equipment and utility vehicles to meet the needs of today's customers who manage and maintain golf courses, sports fields and municipal grounds. Jacobsen ensures every product performs to the standards of these top-level professionals by asking for and listening to their feedback throughout the product lifecycle, providing dedicated support and service training and conducting thorough testing for quality and reliability. The company markets Jacobsen brand products in the U.S. and internationally through an extensive independent distribution network and the Ransomes brand through independent distribution in Europe, Middle East and Africa. Jacobsen, headquartered in Charlotte, N.C., is a Textron company. Additional information about the company, its products and commitment to customer support is available at www.jacobsen.com.
About Textron Inc.
Textron Inc. (NYSE: TXT) is a $13.2 billion multi-industry company operating in 34 countries with approximately 44,000 employees. The company leverages its global network of aircraft, defense and intelligence, industrial and finance businesses to provide customers with innovative solutions and services. Textron is known around the world for its powerful brands such as Bell Helicopter, Cessna Aircraft Company, Jacobsen, Kautex, Lycoming, E-Z-GO, Greenlee, Fluid & Power, Textron Systems and Textron Financial Corporation. More information is available at www.textron.com.