An English Golf Club's Autonomous Mowers Cut Its Largest Fairway in About 2.5 Hours

Large Fairways and a Narrow Window

Fairways are big, and the window to cut them is narrow. A mowing run that spills into the hours of play is noticed by golfers, and one that starts late pushes the rest of the day's work back with it. For a club with a large fairway program, the question was rarely whether to mow. It was when, and how long the cut would take.

The club wanted its biggest cutting jobs to fit into early mornings and evenings, without competing with everything else the grounds team had to do. Trickier areas around the fairways also needed a mower that works in tighter spaces than a large machine suits.

• Large fairways with a short window before play
• Early and evening hours that can absorb the biggest cuts
• Tighter, trickier areas that a large mower handles less well

Two Large Units, Then a Mixed Fleet

The fleet was built in two sizes. Two large autonomous fairway mowers take the open turf, and eight smaller units handle the trickier areas where a bigger machine is less suited. Splitting the work by size meant each unit ran where it was built to run.

The rollout came in phases. The first large unit began on four holes, running in early mornings and evenings. A second large unit was then being installed to take four or five more holes, and adding it was the step the club took to raise productivity.

Full coverage remained the goal as the second unit came into service, and the smaller units kept the trickier ground in shape alongside them.

• Pair large fairway units with smaller units for trickier ground
• Start the first large unit on four holes in early and evening runs
• Add a second large unit for four or five more holes
• Build toward full fairway coverage over time

Results From the First Big Cut

The headline result is the time to cut the club's largest fairway, which the club reports at about 2.5 hours. That single cut shows what the large units can manage on a big piece of turf in one session, and it is the figure the club points to when it talks about the program.

The second large unit was added to raise productivity, and the smaller units cover the ground the big machines leave alone. Together they widened what the program could reach, while the first large unit kept its early and evening runs.

The result is a fairway program that spreads its work across two sizes of machine and across the hours when the turf can best take it.

What This Means for a Lease Decision

A club or grounds operator weighing a program like this faces a sequence of decisions before any hardware is chosen. Which fairways go first, which edges need a smaller unit, and how many large machines the turf truly calls for are all questions for a site assessment. That early work shapes the fleet more than any single machine specification.

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Robots reach our customers on a lease, through lease financing programs on a three year lease with one fixed payment quoted after a site assessment. A business can start with one leased unit, watch how it performs on its actual ground, and widen the fleet when the results justify it.