I ended up buying a Scag 52” Tiger Cat II. That is their bottom of the line true commercial mower.
It cost more than my first new Tacoma. Back in 88.
However, it has literally cut my mowing time in half. From two hours with my 1999 John Deere 42” rider to 1 hour with the Scag.
I am sure I could reduce that even further, but there are several spots where I bottom out/scalp if I am going too fast.
All of my lawn/field was forest ten years ago. So, a lot of the places where there used to be boulders have sunk. I need to bring in about 4-5 more dump trucks of loam and regrade.
The Scag will go 10 mph and still cut grass because the blades spin at a higher RPM than typical home owner mowers.
I’m hopefully postponing the next 0turn purchase to next year, the prices are a wake up call. $5-15k basically