Kress hosted superintendents from across Southern California at the Santaluz Club to showcase its new robotic mowers and electric power equipment.
Santaluz Club director of agronomy Jeff Miller spoke to attendees about the time he’s spent with Kress’ mowers on his course.
“We’ve learned how much they help our entire program here as far as noise, fuel consumption and improving the rough,” Miller told the more than a dozen superintendents gathered at his clubhouse. “It’s hard to quantify some of the other benefits, like the compaction and reducing the number of tracks from heavy units going through areas.”
Miller has plenty of experience with robotic mowers on his course, having used mowers from a different manufacturer before he adopted Kress’ units for his rough. Santaluz also utilizes larger mowers for its fairways from Firefly Automatix — for more, read the May 2024 issue of Golfdom.
The most significant selling point for Kress’ robotic mowers is the singular GPS antenna that a course needs for a full fleet to operate. According to Tim Barrier, CGCS, a former superintendent at Rancho Santa Fe GC, now serving as golf business development manager for Kress, the antenna is free to install and doesn’t require a subscription to use.
More importantly, a single antenna covers a 30-mile radius, allowing other Kress robotic mower users — including other golf courses, homeowners and others — to connect to that network.
“If a course has an antenna, then you’ve got the whole course and surrounding area set,” Barrier said. “We’re going to Seattle tomorrow to do some training. We have a temporary antenna up right now. This will be one of those golf courses we call one of our lighthouse properties where they have a full deployment, and then we can attract other people from the industry to come and see that deployment and educate the people who live in that area.”
For Miller and Santaluz Club, the cost savings have also been significant. Miller estimates that using battery-powered equipment, including mowers, he’s saved $6,000.
Labor wise, Miller adds that savings have been even more significant.
“We spend 2,200 hours yearly mowing the rough using traditional methods and blowing all the clippings,” he said. “For four guys, it took two full days to mow the course, and you have to do that when the golf course is closed. So, I calculated it, and it saved us around 2,000 hours, which is around $50,000.”
For Miller, the time savings have extended further than the more apparent savings from time spent manually mowing turf thanks to the unique way Kress’ mowers learn the area they’ll be mowing.
“This technology is unique in that the pilot comes off, it goes onto a mapping cart. You map your area and put it back on the mower,” Barrier said. “It’s unique; nobody has anything like that. You dump the old map and start a new one without having to drive the unit around.”
“The other point that saves you time is that you’re not driving the unit around,” Miller added. “I have spare units, so I can take the pilot off any other unit, and the robot can mow that zone. Having the flexibility of taking another unit and mapping it separately whenever you want to: a wet area, a thin area, rainy, whatever it may be, it’s so much easier to make adjustments.”
Miller is a major proponent of the switch to robotic mowers. For superintendents in California and beyond thinking about starting to utilize autonomous mowers, he urges them to dive right in after doing their research.
“I say it’s worth the effort. It’s almost like a no-brainer,” he said. “You’re going to have to do this. There are no really big downsides to it. You just have to change your mindset. After two or three months of installing the mowers, I sold my two (Groundsmaster 4500s); that’s how confident I was.”
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