Silent revolution: Robotic-mower technology

Sydney’s Oatlands Golf Club is the latest Australian course to embrace robotic-mower technology, ushering in a quieter, greener and smarter era of turf care

Robots. You’ve heard the concerns. You may have even expressed some yourself. “They’re taking people’s jobs.” “They’re deskilling the workforce.” “They’re too expensive.” But on the fairways of golf, could it be that we’ve completely underestimated the humble, high-tech machine?

Oatlands Golf Club is the latest to come to their defence after its decision to offload its fairway-mowing duties to Husqvarna’s latest range of Ceora autonomous lawn mowers.

These innovative, self-charging, battery-powered robots glide silently across the club’s fairways, guided by GPS precision and managed via an app on course superintendent Dominic Yates’ phone. The result: pristine turf, minimal noise and a drastically reduced carbon footprint compared to traditional petrol fairway mowers. They’ve also freed up Yates’ green staff to focus more of their time on other course projects.

It’s a shift, according to Yates, that represents a new chapter for the club – one born out of necessity as much as innovation.

“Like a lot of golf courses around the country, we’ve always struggled to find staff,” Yates tells Australian Golf Digest. “Instead of one staff member having his bum on a fairway mower two days a week, I can now free that staff member up to do something else that we don’t normally get time to do. It’s an important distinction to make – these mowers are not replacing staff, they’re helping fill that void for clubs like us that can’t attract people to the industry.”

The inspiration to go with Husqvarna’s Ceora fleet came earlier this year when Yates attended one of the company’s demo days at The Lakes Golf Club.

“I saw these robotic mowers running around and was immediately impressed with how they worked and the quality of the cut,” he says. “Western Mowers in Pendle Hill are my local Husqvarna dealer, so we agreed to set up a trial, cutting two par-3 fairways near our clubhouse to begin with. I was sold.”

It didn’t take long for the Oatlands board to be convinced automowers are the future of turf care, either. “We ended up replacing both our traditional fairway mowers with Husqvarna’s Ceora automowers,” Yates adds. “They do just as good a job as the normal ride-on fairway mower, so much so that our committee is already talking about when we’re going to get more. The stripe pattern on the fairway looks like we’ve walked behind with our specialised greens mowers – the quality and visuals are that good.”

Husqvarna says its Ceora system represents the cutting edge of turf technology. Designed for large-area maintenance like golf fairways and sports fields, it can mow up to 75,000 square metres with remarkable consistency. Used at other clubs, including Queensland’s Woodford Golf Club, each unit runs quietly on battery power, guided by Husqvarna’s EPOS satellite positioning system that eliminates the need for physical boundary wires. It can be programmed, monitored and adjusted remotely via smartphone or tablet, offering an unprecedented level of control – and sustainability. But for Yates, one of the biggest benefits is simply the peace and quiet.

“They’re so silent. I start cutting our fairways at midnight and they can go through the day as well,” he says. “The members have got used to them. They stop automatically when a golfer is standing in their way hitting a shot.”

Even the club’s more traditional members and green staff have come around. “The younger generation are really excited about it,” Yates laughs. “A couple of the older guys took a little bit to get used to it, but now they see the benefit. They’ll jump on the radio if a mower stops for a stick or branch, but they’re not out there sabotaging them
or anything like that!”

For superintendents like Yates, flexibility is priceless – and he now has it at his fingertips.

“We still start early, changing holes and raking bunkers, but we’re not firing up loud petrol mowers at 5 o’clock in the morning and breaking [noise] curfews,” he says. “The other day I was actually playing golf and noticed a fairway that needed a touch-up, so I just opened the app on my phone and told it to start mowing. It’s that easy.

“Because they’re basically cutting every day, chopping that little bit of grass every time, it self-fertilises the fairways to leave them in pristine condition. And with their lighter footprint, they can mow in all conditions without damaging the surface.”

For many supers across the country, it will sound too good to be true. So, will automowers be the future for Australian golf clubs?

“To a certain extent, yeah, they will be,” Yates believes. “There’ll always be jobs you need traditional mowers for, but autonomous fairway mowers are definitely adapting to the needs of larger-scale turfed areas.”

For Oatlands, that future has already arrived – silent, sustainable and striping fairways to perfection.