Drillers know water makes or breaks a golf course. What’s less obvious is what powers the rig behind the scenes. In Toyota City, Aichi Prefecture, that unsung workhorse came in the form of two Atlas Copco Y35 portable air compressors — “top-class airflow and pressure,” as Sansui Kaihatsu’s CEO, Kazuyoshi Ikawa, said, tired of slowdowns from sagging air.

Sansui Kaihatsu — an underground construction specialist from Miyoshi City, Hiroshima Prefecture — has bored holes all over Japan. But the 250-meter irrigation well they tackled for a local course brought all the usual hurdles: mixed geology, a production timeline, and strict efficiency demands. As Ikawa put it, other compressors had let them down before, “slowing down drilling progress” and eating into their margins.

That’s why the company doubled down on Atlas Copco’s Y35 units this time. With deep wells, drillers don’t have the luxury of inconsistent air. The Y35, Ikawa said, hasn’t just kept pace — it’s “exceeded expectations in drilling speed and overall efficiency.” Crews noticed: the compressors held their nerve through changing ground and long hours, pushing air “across our boring projects,” whether drilling for water or geothermal energy.

For drillers eyeing their next investment, adaptability matters. Jaehoon Ahn, Atlas Copco’s Product Marketing Specialist for Korea & Japan, pointed to the Y35’s ability to “adapt easily to different site conditions.” That flexibility translated into real-world dollars for Sansui Kaihatsu, who now move the same compressors from irrigation holes to hot spring wells and even seismic installations without skipping a beat.

Onsite uptime is only half the win. While fuel economy gets talked up in sales brochures, drillers care when the tank stretches further every week. Atlas Copco’s Tatsuo Seko, who worked closely with contractors, noted that “long-term performance” goes hand-in-hand with “day-to-day efficiency” — and said the company aimed to be the kind of partner you can still depend on “across Japan” as projects and technology evolve.

That’s the bottom line for Sansui Kaihatsu: by bringing in air that doesn’t quit, they finished jobs faster, cut downtime, and kept operational costs manageable. For their customers — the people counting on wells that deliver water to the greens — these are the small margins that keep their turf playable, season after season.

There’s no magic in turning a section of underground rock into a reliable water source. It comes down to having a compressor that lives up to its promise, a crew that knows how to use it, and the focus to bring the two together day after day. Drillers paying attention will find something useful in Sansui Kaihatsu’s approach: use gear that “exceeds expectations” so you can hand over the job with confidence.