Are Superintendents using this new smart machinery?

[Jeff Schley]

Maybe I haven't been paying attention or this is just the USGA showing some next generation equipment they want to see utilized more, but was just tooling around on the USGA website and stumbled onto this video highlighting "equipment for the future". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lpaEttVipw&index=1&list=PLnU5qUEfww3cOAU8iTQTUpF5S4UqhXJka

• hybrid and electrically powered mowers/rollers
• fully automated mowers
• fully automated chemical spraying
• Sensors in all equipment that is tracked my GPS to show where each piece of equipment was that day

Is this actually being used and if so how prevalent is it?I would imagine there is a significant cost to upgrade to this new equipment, what is the break even point to pay for it over paying labor?
Cool stuff IMO, I thought the sensors and GPS tracking could actually keep tabs on your labor to see what they were doing all day and give you some feedback on their productivity speed wise or if they are napping.

[SB]

From my standpoint as an owner, I've yet to see solid benefits.


Electric equipment are quiet but don't go very far before needing charging.  We bought a bunch of greensmowers to assuage the neighbors but switched back fairly quickly.  This was 5 years ago, though, so the tech may have improved.  Can't speak to hybrid.


Fully automated mowers don't save a whole lot of labor because you need someone to take it from hole to hole and stand around in case it screws up.  Yes, they can rake bunkers, but the mowers are slower, so there's some wasted time.  The ones I looked at cost 2-3X what a normal greensmower costs and you need 2-3X as many because they are electric and can only cover a few holes before they run out of juice.  I'm sure they will get cheaper over time but right now the numbers don't work.


Automated spraying sounds like a terrible idea.  Unless you're talking fertigation which has been in use for a while and seems to work pretty well.  That said, I never hear of people retrofitting systems, only new installs, so maybe it's not that efficient.  If it was, everyone would have done it by now.


Sensors in equipment seems like a good way to waste a supers time to watch what his guys are doing.  If he's scheduling efficiently, has trained well, and has hired people who don't need micromanaging, he shouldn't need it.

[Anthony_Nysse]

From my standpoint as an owner, I've yet to see solid benefits.


Electric equipment are quiet but don't go very far before needing charging.  We bought a bunch of greensmowers to assuage the neighbors but switched back fairly quickly.  This was 5 years ago, though, so the tech may have improved.  Can't speak to hybrid.


Fully automated mowers don't save a whole lot of labor because you need someone to take it from hole to hole and stand around in case it screws up.  Yes, they can rake bunkers, but the mowers are slower, so there's some wasted time.  The ones I looked at cost 2-3X what a normal greensmower costs and you need 2-3X as many because they are electric and can only cover a few holes before they run out of juice.  I'm sure they will get cheaper over time but right now the numbers don't work.


Automated spraying sounds like a terrible idea.  Unless you're talking fertigation which has been in use for a while and seems to work pretty well.  That said, I never hear of people retrofitting systems, only new installs, so maybe it's not that efficient.  If it was, everyone would have done it by now.


Sensors in equipment seems like a good way to waste a supers time to watch what his guys are doing.  If he's scheduling efficiently, has trained well, and has hired people who don't need micromanaging, he shouldn't need it.

 The new, fully automated greens mowers are about the cost of a triplex, too and they can’t roll or verticut like a Triplex can, so....I don't think the demand is there yet for a lot of this stuff and none of it's cheap. The real eye opener is return on investment, whether it's an automated mower or GPS sprayer. Kind of like a Prius. Its going to be a while before you get your money back from the investment.  The mowers seem to be more popular in CA and the northwest. I know that California Golf Club uses them.
 

[John Foley]

I saw some autonomous equipment being used / tested on some steep slopes @ Yale. First time I've seen it and it looked like it might have been a specific product for that environment.

[Justin VanLanduit]

Europe is using more automated equipment than we are here.  I think the big issue here in the United States with a lot of the stuff is safety.  Unmanned machines with cutting units are making a lot of people nervous.  There are items that are breaking through like Tony mentioned, the new robotic greens mower probably the biggest.  Some guys here in Chicago have been trying them and have found there are still glitches to work out.  Currently they run off of sonar waves vs gps.  Wind and sound waves can mess up the signal thus messing up the accuracy of the machine.  They are now working towards gps guidance.  We jumped in to gps guided spraying technology in 2012.  We were in the market of replacing our sprayer and I felt it would be only wise to look at the technology at our fingertips.  Being a farm boy and knowing what gps had been doing in that market for the last several years so I knew it was possible.  We were lucky to find a group from NC which were using a farm based gps guidance platform and retrofitting to golf course sprayers.  We have now added a second unit to our fleet and we are very happy with their performance.  Initially the savings in product sprayed justified the purchase.  Now the accuracy and reduced time to spray is driving it.  We seen a 17% reduction in areas sprayed going to single nozzle gps controlled spraying vs boom controlled.  As of now I feel this is the only item on the market where you see a true ROI.  When you think that you could save 15k a year from not buying chemical wasted in areas not targeted it helped justify the expense of the gps equipment or reallocated to other products that maybe you weren't utilizing to their full potential.

[Tom Bacsanyi]

I think the first place where you will see robot mowers used en masse will be big slopes and rough in general.  Most courses are essentially mowing rough all day every day.  And flymowing is literally the worst job in GCM.  You could save hundreds of man hours weekly by automating rough mowing.


Some problems I can forsee with the robot greens mowers is dumping buckets (still need a guy and a vehicle with a bed), scouting for debris pre-mow (still need a guy).  It's not as if the robot will pick up a bunch of twigs, pick up pebbles, scoop turds, or blow off some leaves ahead of mowing a green.


The other upside of a guy walk mowing a green is the ability to scout for disease, dry spots, etc.  This of course assumes you have a good crew.

[Tom Bacsanyi]

Europe is using more automated equipment than we are here.  I think the big issue here in the United States with a lot of the stuff is safety.  Unmanned machines with cutting units are making a lot of people nervous.  There are items that are breaking through like Tony mentioned, the new robotic greens mower probably the biggest.  Some guys here in Chicago have been trying them and have found there are still glitches to work out.  Currently they run off of sonar waves vs gps.  Wind and sound waves can mess up the signal thus messing up the accuracy of the machine.  They are now working towards gps guidance.  We jumped in to gps guided spraying technology in 2012.  We were in the market of replacing our sprayer and I felt it would be only wise to look at the technology at our fingertips.  Being a farm boy and knowing what gps had been doing in that market for the last several years so I knew it was possible.  We were lucky to find a group from NC which were using a farm based gps guidance platform and retrofitting to golf course sprayers.  We have now added a second unit to our fleet and we are very happy with their performance.  Initially the savings in product sprayed justified the purchase.  Now the accuracy and reduced time to spray is driving it.  We seen a 17% reduction in areas sprayed going to single nozzle gps controlled spraying vs boom controlled.  As of now I feel this is the only item on the market where you see a true ROI.  When you think that you could save 15k a year from not buying chemical wasted in areas not targeted it helped justify the expense of the gps equipment or reallocated to other products that maybe you weren't utilizing to their full potential.

Single nozzle?  Explain please.

[Justin VanLanduit]

Each sprayer is set up with usually 11 nozzles some 12.  For the longest time the only control you had was to shut off a valve for each section of boom which usually had 3-4 nozzles.  Now with single nozzle control you can be more precise with shutting 1 nozzle off rather than a whole boom of 3-4 nozzles.  A lot of time over spray is done on perimeters of playing surfaces cause the area you have to spray may only need 1-2 nozzles but since you only have boom control you have to leave all nozzles on thus blasting expensive chemical in your rough or areas where it's not needed.  Here is a video showing the single nozzle gps control.  This is the platform that we utilize:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yw_HQ4PkfuU

Europe is using more automated equipment than we are here.  I think the big issue here in the United States with a lot of the stuff is safety.  Unmanned machines with cutting units are making a lot of people nervous.  There are items that are breaking through like Tony mentioned, the new robotic greens mower probably the biggest.  Some guys here in Chicago have been trying them and have found there are still glitches to work out.  Currently they run off of sonar waves vs gps.  Wind and sound waves can mess up the signal thus messing up the accuracy of the machine.  They are now working towards gps guidance.  We jumped in to gps guided spraying technology in 2012.  We were in the market of replacing our sprayer and I felt it would be only wise to look at the technology at our fingertips.  Being a farm boy and knowing what gps had been doing in that market for the last several years so I knew it was possible.  We were lucky to find a group from NC which were using a farm based gps guidance platform and retrofitting to golf course sprayers.  We have now added a second unit to our fleet and we are very happy with their performance.  Initially the savings in product sprayed justified the purchase.  Now the accuracy and reduced time to spray is driving it.  We seen a 17% reduction in areas sprayed going to single nozzle gps controlled spraying vs boom controlled.  As of now I feel this is the only item on the market where you see a true ROI.  When you think that you could save 15k a year from not buying chemical wasted in areas not targeted it helped justify the expense of the gps equipment or reallocated to other products that maybe you weren't utilizing to their full potential.

Single nozzle?  Explain please.

[Steve Okula]

Europe is using more automated equipment than we are here.

I'm a superintendent in France and I have seen practically no automated equipment except for manufactureress demos. Maybe it's coming but it's not here yet in any numbers.

Not automated but hybrid mowers are more common. In this context hybrid doesn't mean the whole machine can be powered by electricity but that the mower reels are electrically driven to eliminate hydraulic hoses and the ensuing inevitable oil leaks.

Electric vehicles and mowers are available, and the runabout electric buggies are widely used but as mentioned the mowers don't get very far on a charge and so lack efficiency.

[Peter Flory]

I think the first place where you will see robot mowers used en masse will be big slopes and rough in general.  Most courses are essentially mowing rough all day every day.  And flymowing is literally the worst job in GCM.  You could save hundreds of man hours weekly by automating rough mowing.


Some problems I can forsee with the robot greens mowers is dumping buckets (still need a guy and a vehicle with a bed), scouting for debris pre-mow (still need a guy).  It's not as if the robot will pick up a bunch of twigs, pick up pebbles, scoop turds, or blow off some leaves ahead of mowing a green.


The other upside of a guy walk mowing a green is the ability to scout for disease, dry spots, etc.  This of course assumes you have a good crew.

It seems like a human and an automated green mower would make a great team.  The human works ahead of the mower on the debris removal and can change out the hole while also being there with the kill switch in case the machine goes rogue. 


From a technical standpoint, could all the fairway mower bots and rough mower bots be sent out pre-dawn?  i.e. is the reason that the course is generally mowed at 5AM because workers need to see and don't want to wake up any earlier?  Mowing in the darkness could get the course ready earlier and avoid the mixing of robotic power tools and customers. 


Bunker raking roombas could definitely work in the dead of night, couldn't they? 

[Mark Dorman]

Pushing more expensive, unproven equipment on cash strained businesses.


The golf course maintenance industry is trying to crush golf.


$500+ for a single irrigation sprinkler. $40,000+ for fairway units. Fert and chem reps pushing expensive product with little to no knowledge of the product or the conditions of the facility they sell to.


Its no wonder why so many courses have been going out of business.

[Anthony_Nysse]

Pushing more expensive, unproven equipment on cash strained businesses.


The golf course maintenance industry is trying to crush golf.


$500+ for a single irrigation sprinkler. $40,000+ for fairway units. Fert and chem reps pushing expensive product with little to no knowledge of the product or the conditions of the facility they sell to.


Its no wonder why so many courses have been going out of business.

A good triplex to mow greens with is about $40k, actually. Fwy units can be north of $65k. There are rough units north of $80k each.


Irrigation Heads, casing and all are $200-225

[Mark Dorman]

.

[Bret Lawrence]

I saw some autonomous equipment being used / tested on some steep slopes @ Yale. First time I've seen it and it looked like it might have been a specific product for that environment.

Yale has a remote controlled mower that they use on very steep slopes.  This particular mower is capable of mowing a slope up to a 45 or 50 degree angle. 


It seems to make a lot of sense at Yale because of the many steep slopes throughout the course.  These slopes are so steep they typically would have to be hover mowed or string trimmed. The amount of time it takes to mow a slope with this machine is significantly faster, because the string trimmers would have to get off the hill when golfers arrived then climb back up the hill, go back to work, then repeat the process every time a group of golfers come through.


The remote controlled mower can stay on the hill while golfers play, and get right back to work saving time and money in the long run.  The string trimmers and hover mowers are subcontracted workers at Yale, so that would factor into the break even analysis.  I would guess the break even point is about two years at Yale and at that point the mower will pay for itself.  Just my estimate, I would check with Yale if you want to know the real answer.


Bret

[Alan FitzGerald CGCS MG]

The robotic tech is slow to come to the market for the reasons mentioned but the tech is updating quickly and I think more of it will be seen as time goes on, especially as golf courses struggle to find help. I can see the robotic mowers becoming more prevalent when the price point and efficiency of operation can offset the purchase cost but having spoken to a superintendent using them, his club is already there and the next generation of machines (supposedly being launched this year) will be that much better again.


There seems to be a bit of a misconception on the GPS sprayers. They still need an operator (although they can steer themselves) but the GPS covers the accuracy of the application putting product exactly where it is needed and without overlap. The club here bought upgraded the sprayers two years ago and are seeing ~15% savings which is paying for the tech while the environmental benefits are incredible.


The battery tech has always been around golf with carts but now as batteries get more efficient we will see it become even more prevalent. The hybrid tech has somewhat been in response to the newer emissions regulations as the cost to meet emissions has greatly increased the cost of the machines. The hybrids can make do with smaller engines (which do not need the expensive emission controls) and make up the power difference with the electric power - just like the automotive industry. Both now cost about the same (the hybrid tech is offset with the cost of the new Tier 4 engines) but with the added benefit of having less/no hydraulics which eliminates potential turf damage.