Cranham is reputed to be the primary 18-hole golf course within the UK to utilise autonomous mowing throughout all of its fairways and first-cut tough – and the Essex venue is now reaping the advantages.
It was again in Could 2023 that Cranham, a public course, adopted the expertise to take care of the huge bulk of its 350,000m2, par-67 structure.
With its eye-catching, island-green closing gap, Cranham has developed a glowing fame for the standard of its course, one thing managing director Barney Cameron says is immediately associated to the membership’s high-tech turfcare.
“We’re continually investing into grounds upkeep,” he mentioned. “Finally, the situation of the course is what’s going to maintain gamers joyful and preserve them coming again over the long run.
“As a public course, there isn’t a resting on our laurels. We’re extra weak to rising prices than a member-only golf membership that tends to have each fastened and diversified income streams.
“We rapidly realised that we wanted to search out methods to minimise future price will increase with out sacrificing our fame for the standard of the course.”
Barney discovered his greenkeeping group have been too stretched to have the ability to ship the requirements they have been able to, and he wanted an answer.
“Our guys are glorious, an actual asset to the enterprise, however we realised that we weren’t capable of utilise their experience to the fullest,” he defined.
“By the point they’d completed mowing the fairways and tough, there was restricted time left for managing bunkers, repairing divots, inexperienced administration and enhancing drainage.
“It was like proudly owning a sports activities automotive however principally utilizing it for the run to the grocery store slightly than driving it at its fullest potential on a racetrack.”
Autonomous mowing: How autonomous mowers work at Cranham – might they do the identical to your membership?
Cranham turned to automation as a method to assuaging the workload on the greenkeeping group, affording them time to are inclined to the extra expert work and leaving machines to do the lion’s share of the chopping.
The membership undertook a two-week trial with two ECHO robots, which mowed the fairways 24 hours a day. The influence on the course, and on the group, was important.
“We simply couldn’t consider the end result,” mentioned Barney. “We walked the course after solely a few days and the end was unbelievable.
“Given the massive space being reduce, I used to be anticipating to search out a minimum of a number of areas missed or an uneven reduce on slopes. I actually thought we would want to tune the robotic’s efficiency over plenty of weeks, however it was near-perfect from the beginning.”
It was not simply the employees who have been impressed, as gamers additionally observed a distinction within the taking part in circumstances, which confirmed a marked enchancment because of each the mowers and the power of the greenkeeping group to deal with extra focused work.
“What actually took me abruptly was the secondary profit that the robots have given us,” Barney defined.
“Final yr, for the primary time in a very long time, we had the capability to actually deal with drainage, bunker upkeep and correct administration of our hedgerows. Prospects have observed the distinction and commented on the advance.
“We used to must sub-contract out this sort of work, however now we now have the time to do it ourselves and, fairly frankly, we do a greater job of it. I really feel that our greenkeepers are much more engaged lately too.
“They’ve lastly acquired the time to deal with what they’re finest at and I can’t assist however really feel that they’re going house somewhat extra happy with their work than they have been earlier than.”
This text seems in Your Course, the twice-yearly publication from the British and Worldwide Golf Greenkeepers Affiliation. Your Course invitations golfers to achieve a deeper appreciation of what getting ready and sustaining a golf course actually entails. Head to www.bigga.org.uk to search out out extra.
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