The future is now at Hawk's Landing

Neatly dressed in a blue blazer, blue dress shirt and khaki slacks, Sean O'Brien definitely does not look the part of a revolutionary.

Trust me, though, that's exactly the role being played by the director of grounds at Hawk's Landing Golf Club at the Marriott World Center in Orlando. Whether intentional or not, O'Brien (left) placed himself squarely on golf course management's cutting edge when he and Marriott Golf agreed to let Hawk's Landing serve as a demonstration facility for Precise Path's RG3 robotic greensmowers, making it the first facility in the world to have it's greens maintained on a day-to-day basis by, well, robots.

"Anybody who is honest with themselves in this industry knows this is the way we're going," the eight-year GCSAA member said. "The thought of being one of first guys (to utilize robotic greensmowers) is exciting. My team got on board with it, my two mechanics were on board with it, so we just collectively decided to go with it. It's been awesome."

With the RG3 on the cusp of commercial availability for the very first time, Precise Path invited industry media to a show-and-tell event in Orlando last week. It was an intriguing experience, one that highlighted both the advancements the machine has undergone since its introduction at the 2009 Golf Industry Show in New Orleans and the real-world lessons Precise Path, O'Brien and his team have learned since the RG3 became the primary cutting units for Hawk's Landing's greens in February of this year.

This was my second up-close-and-personal experience with the RG3 — I saw a demo of the units at Woodland Country Club in Carmel, Ind., near Precise Path's headquarters, in July of 2009 — and when superintendents I encounter learn that I've seen them in action, I inevitably get the same set of questions, most of them tinged with reservation. The curiosity is most definitely there, but so is the skepticism.

O'Brien has gotten the same reactions over the past 10 months. "Everybody is curious ... everybody. They all know what we’re doing over here, even guys I’ve never met before in the area. They know what we’re doing.

"I would say that, initially, almost everybody is skeptical because when you take one thing and you almost completely change that, people are going to be like, ‘Well, I don’t know if this is going to work.’ But that skepticism is quickly turned into interest and excitement once they see them in action and the results they produce. I think they’ve probably proved themselves to a lot of people." 

O'Brien includes himself in that club. He had plenty of questions when Precise Path first approached Hawk's Landing. What would he do with a new set of traditional greensmowers the club had just purchased? How would his veteran crew handle the adjustment to this new technology? How closely would he need to monitor the RG3s when they were in use? And maybe most importantly, how well would these new units actually cut his greens?

Following the first 10 months of this experiment — almost six months using two RG3s to exclusively cut his back nine, and another four months with a total of four units handling greensmowing on all 18 holes — O'Brien has gotten satisfactory answers to most of his questions. The quality of cut delivered by the John Deere-provided cutting units (the RG3s will ship with the same cutting units found on Deere's 220 E-Cut hybrid walk-behind greensmowers) has been "just as good as the mowers we were using," said O'Brien. "That worry was very, very short-lived."

Additionally, O'Brien said the roller that sits behind the cutting unit and actually propels the RG3 has provided a great additional benefit — greater green speeds. "(The back nine) was rolling a foot and a half to three quarters of a foot faster than the front nine," during the six months when just the back nine was being mowed by the RG3s. "And that has to do with the weight of the RG3 and that rolling effect. Not only are you rolling like you would with a Smithco roller, like we have, but you’re rolling in place where you’re cutting. It’s very accurate — you’re rolling on that exact line."

Another worry that quickly went away was about how his crew would adapt to the changes in both machines and to the usual morning work rituals that had become habit over the years. "Getting the guys to buy in was, initially, the hardest part," he said. "But once they had a chance to see it and it proved itself to them, everybody got excited and kind of came together."

Those process changes to morning set-up procedures and the ability for workers to tackle other tasks like tee service, ball mark repair and bunker raking while the RG3 does it thing are a benefit being pushed hard by the company. And that willingness to fundamentally change the way it approached that important work was one of the reason Precise Path targeted Hawk's Landing for this long-term test run, according to Jeff Everrett, the company's director of sales and service (pictured here).

"We needed to find somebody who would fundamentally change the way they run their operation because we wanted to observe how it could be done," Everrett said. "We had talked about it, we had shown people the numbers, we’d done it ourselves on a small-scale level at other courses, but we had not done it on a full-scale basis. That’s what we needed. We needed the ability to demonstrate the program, live, day in and day out so we could bring people here and Sean could say, 'I ran my operation like this and this is what happened. These guys are telling the truth and this makes real business sense.'”

O'Brien added: "What it gave us the opportunity to do is train more guys on more things like cutting cups, which is arguably the most important thing you do on a green every single morning because it is the one area that everybody sees the most when they’re playing golf. And the guys we did train in that, it made them feel like we were investing in them and not only were we training them to use this new technology but we were also training them to be a cup cutter. There was a sense of pride there."

Now, going robotic won't be for everybody. Price will deter many facilities — a single RG3 will sell for about $40,000, which includes a specialized trailer, accessories, software and a two-year unlimited hours warranty. There is also a one-time $1,000 per green set up charge to install the wiring necessary for the RG3 to complete its clean-up passes. Tradition also might be a roadblock at many courses, facilities that would rather wait and see how this new technology takes hold before taking any risks, perceived or otherwise, associated with being an early adopter.

But Everrett remains a firm believer that the time is right for this leap. "We think we're at a unique point in the industry, and the timing is right for us to release this technology. The business case exists that golf courses need to be fundamentally run better. They need to reduce their operating costs, they need to find ways to increase their revenue and we think the RG3 can help do both of those things."

The bottom line from O'Brien? "Yes, I would buy them for my course. They've exceeded every expectation that I had going into this."

Comments

[Justin Tafs]

This has technology has the chance to revolutionize how courses across America are taken care of. Well done Precise Path.