What kind of putting green reel mower
do I need?

There are a few very important criteria to selecting the proper putting green reel mower. First and most important, it must be a reel mower as opposed to a rotary one. This means the blades are built onto a horizontally spinning cylinder.

Second, a putting green reel mower's cutting height must be able to be adjusted down to at least 1/8 of an inch (.125" or 3mm). This is called the bench setting and is measured as the distance between the roller height and the bedknife.

Finally it must have a high clip rate. What this is is the number of times the blade will cross over the bedknife over a distance of one foot. The more often it does, the more often the grass blades get a trim in that foot. Too low a clip rate and you will get bumpy greens and an uneven cut. Usually a green mower will have 9 to 11 blades to achieve the necessary clip rate, while average reel lawn mowers only have 5 blades.

The second aspect to look at is the type of drive to push the mower. They can be fully manual meaning that as you push the mower over the ground, a wheel attached to gears will cause the reel to spin.

This is certainly the most environmentally friendly method, but may be unrealistic if you have a very large green, or several greens.

Other methods of propulsion include electric (battery or plug-in cable) and gas motors. One advantage these units have over the push one is they are generally much heavier and as such can provide a smoother putting surface. For most cases, backyard golf greens will not get enough play to make compaction from the putting green reel mower a cause for concern. The disadvantage is significantly higher purchasing cost.

Finally you will have to decide between a fixed-head mower and a floating head. The first mowers were often floating head as that limited scalping, particularly on severely undulating terrain, by reducing the weight of the cutting reel on the turf and being able to have the reel easily follow the terrain. Fixed heads are standard on push type mowers as they are already much lighter and not prone to scalping. With the advent of larger flatter putting greens and much lower heights of cut, motorized fixed-head mowers became popular. Many golf courses will have both fixed and floating heads and use a different putting green reel mower depending on the green type and the amount of stress the turf is under.

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