See The Job Killing Mower In Action

Ron Whitten files a GolfDigest.com item on the R2D2 of mowers and shows it in action.

Okay, so we’ve eliminated one employee who would otherwise operate the mower, as well as one or two kids who would lay the plywood ahead of it. In this era of high unemployment, is a robotic greens mower really a good idea?

Yes, says Sean O’Brien, the Director of Grounds at Hawk’s Landing, who has been using four RG3s for nine months, and presently mows every green with them. He’s not into job elimination, he says, but job reallocation. It still takes four workers to run the robotic mowers. Each man must transport a robot from green to green and place the four beacons around the green. But while the RG3 is doing the mowing, the crewman can change the cup in the green, rake the bunkers around the green and do other clean-up work. Meanwhile, three other employees who had also previously hand-mowed greens have been freed up to mow the rough. “We have a lot of rough,” says O’Brien, “and until now, we’ve never been able to keep up with it.”