Tomorrow's Technologies Today

"There are some people who live in a dream world, and there are some who face reality; and then there are those who turn one into the other." -Douglas Everett

I have been fortunate to have worked under some of the greatest superintendents in the country and had the chance to learn from their teachings. One of the greatest things I learned was, to always have idea of where you and the course are going. As an intern I thought of this as simple insight to a smaller picture. As an assistant now, its insight to a larger picture.

Smartphones have taught the electronic industry the simplicity of combining two gadgets to make a game changing product. The turf industry will have its smartphone sooner than later if history and technology have their way.

Anybody who has a smartphone has played around with the GPS feature and has benefited from the assistance of navigation to get them exactly where they wanted to go. One could ask, "why can't such a feature or device be utilized on a piece of equipment on a golf course"?

Precision Path RG3 

Fortunately, the ball has already started to roll in that direction. Most recently, Jacobson and NuTec (below) have introduced a GPS assisted sprayer add-ons, and Precision Path (above) has developed a robotic greens mower. These new technologies are still young but, have a serious place in the golf maintenance future.

Nutec GPS Assisted Sprayer 

The farm agriculture industry has acted like the testing and proving grounds for golf course technologies. Today's tractors steer themselves and make adjustments on the fly, saving fuel and boosting yields simultaneously. If its feasible and saves money the Ag industry has done it.

Sprayers are the first thing that come to mind when we think auto-steer and GPS. But, there is hesitation in the decision to take a highly skilled worker off a complicated machine. So why not take the average worker off the simple machine?

A company called ProbotIQ has utilized the GPS auto-steer system found in farm tractors and added it on to a Toro fairway unit. This is where the game begins to change, and its making that ball called the future get ever so closer.

Fairway Demonstration

This system is interesting because it mimics the users actions accurately. Being able to actually know where the unit is going to mow instead a computer processing a path is a benefit to avoiding a major mistake.  The system is also able to have 100s of different "paths" programmed into its computer which reduces repetition of constant mowing patterns.


Where does it begin to fit?

Golf courses are in a time when members are asking maintenance facilities to do more with less. The conflict begins with the amount of time that is needed to groom a course to member's wants. The limiting factor is the amount of labor hours a course has. For example, a maintenance facility of 10 line employees has typically 400 hours worth of work that can be completed in a week.

Start subtracting the amount of time it takes to cut greens, fairways, tees and roughs, and you're left with all your other detail jobs. Depending on your course thats usually not a whole lot of time to commit to other jobs beyond maintaining current conditions. Every course wants to be able to make improvements after regular "maintenance" is complete but, time simply is on the their side.

Technology has an opportunity to provide maintenance staffs with more time without hiring new employees. Yes, to a degree buying these technologies is like adding another employee. But, how much would the cost be when considering the amount of work that can be completed with them?

The learning curve to implement new technologies will be a large one. But then again, how long did it take until we were married our multi-million dollar irrigation systems to a PC? There is plenty to think about in the end.....