How Robots Are Already Improving Golf Courses

Forbes

02-04-2025

Robotic lawn mower
While I love playing golf first thing in the morning, it often comes at a cost to my sanity: I often encounter the maintenance staff mowing the fairways on seemingly every hole. Those guys and their loud machines seem to creep right along the course with me. I don't understand why they don't work from the last hole back to the first, so that golf groups only intersect with them once during their round.
So while I was playing golf last week at an exclusive country club near San Diego one morning, I was momentarily distracted on the first hole – by what looked like the future. There was a mini army of Kress robotic lawn mowers trimming the rough. They were silent, fairly small in size, and staying out of the way. This is, in part, where golf course maintenance is heading.
There are already smart sprinkler heads and irrigation systems at many courses around the world; clever drainage and airflow systems in sand traps; and geo-fencing capabilities built into golf cart GPS networks. So why not robot mowers?
I understand there are mowers like this from a variety of companies. But the Kress mowers I saw have different types of tire traction that prevents them from tipping over or sliding down slippery hills and surfaces. And apparently they know their limits about how steep of a hill they can traverse. Course maintenance staff members program the mowers' maps, much like consumers do with those robot vacuums for their homes. Apparently lighter machines like these don't require a lot of friction to move. Their narrow tires focus the weight into a smaller contact area, ensuring they bite into the surface, for reliable footing. That said, these are not used in tight areas around the greens, where narrow passageways separate the putting surface and surrounding bunkers.
I was told that when this particular course initially bought the mowers, they had to first mow down the rough to the height they wanted with traditional mowers. Once that was complete, the robot mowers have been working 24/7 to keep the rough at that length so that it never gets out of hand. That's a money saver, because you don't need a staff of maintenance people waiting until daylight to get out to the rough and possibly interfere with golfers while they work. Mind you, traditional maintenance crews still mow the fairways and greens at this club. But the robot mowers are a nice complement. And perhaps the start of something much bigger.
For what it's worth, the mowers all have inconspicuous docking stations scattered around the course and out of play, where they can recharge after their shift. Pretty clever, actually.
They do, however, need to operate via RTK (Real-Time Kinematic) geo-positioning satellite antenna towers in the area. The course I was at did not have its own towers. But thanks to a 37-mile range, these were connected to RTK towers at another nearby golf course that also uses the system.
You could ideally get a mower like this for your lawn. But they are expensive, running up to nearly $5,000 per mower. Although I have seen some models on Amazon from various manufacturers that cost as little as $500. I kind of take offense to those, however, as my very first money source as a teenager was owning a lawn mowing business in my neighborhood. Seriously, if you're going to spend hundreds of dollars on a robot mower, why don't you just pay a neighborhood kid to do the job the old-fashioned way? Likewise, I hope this isn't another case of robots taking away human jobs at golf courses. It doesn't feel that way right now, as the mowers just make the staff's job a little easier. And golf rounds a lot quieter.