Stone Mountain pulling the plug
Of the eight courses that took part in the PERC program, six of them were in the process of purchasing or already had purchased its demo equipment. One of the courses in the minority is Stone Mountain (Ga.) Golf Club by Marriott.
Stone Mountain GC was the first course to receive its equipment. That was in mid-October 2014, four months before the Vinoy, and it reported a fuel savings of $2,000 per month, according to PERC. But when the program came to an end, all four pieces of demo equipment were returned.
Interim Superintendent Matt Park calls PERC’s program “great,” and they had few to no issues with the demo products. He adds that a couple of distributors came to the course asking if he was interested in propane conversion kits for other equipment, but ultimately the owners decided to go in another direction.
“It was about the middle of the study when the course started taking lease agreement bids. Just the fact that we had the ball rolling with those negotiations, we never discussed keeping the propane equipment with ownership,” says Park. “We eventually decided on a package with Toro and signed a lease with them.”
That package does not include any standard or converted propane equipment. Park says perhaps ownership made the decision to stay with a diesel fleet because the course was already set up for that equipment.
When the program began, Stone Mountain GC’s director of grounds was Anthony Williams, CGCS, but he stepped down from his role near the end of the program in January 2016.