A Queensland club’s trial with robotic mowers might turn out to be a pioneering move in the sport.

Woodford Golf Club in the Moreton Bay Region, trialled the Husqvana Ceora automated mower for almost two months earlier this year, after a delay in the arrival of a traditional petrol mower that was on order.

The club subsequently studied a business case and went ahead with the lease of two new robot mowers to cut its fairways.

Club manager Dean Dagan says the mowers are cheaper, quieter, they save person hours and are better for the environment than standard diesel-fuelled mowers. The diesel ride-on mowers cost around $115,000; the battery-operated mowers are in the vicinity of $55,000 each and can be leased.

Several golf clubs around Australia are trialling the Ceora units, but Woodford is the first in Queensland to take them up on a more permanent basis.

The robotic mowers have thee rotating discs each with five blades and run on lithium batteries. They can be programmed and left to mow fairways across the whole course at Woodford using a ‘mapping’ technique, and Dagan says the error margin is as small as two centimetres. It can be set for specific height cuts, and to different styles of cuts all the via Husqvarna Automower application.

The club estimates fuel saving of $5000 per annum and maintenance is covered by a five-year warranty on the robots. Woodford says it saves 12 person hours of labour each time the automated device is sent out to cut the fairways.

When the trial began earlier in the year, Dagan had concerns about the new mower in wet conditions. Then the rains came, and a test was arranged. “We had 80mm of rain one day and Aaron Walsh (the Woodford greenkeeper) and I were sitting in the shed talking about it, and we sent out the Ceora out on the course.

“There were a few puddles. If it rained like that, we wouldn’t get the old mowers out for eight or nine days. It would’ve damaged the course. This thing went out and mowed the fairways, went straight through the puddles. It would have been out three of four times before the old mower.

“I was convinced. We couldn’t really say ‘no’, and the committee were dead keen.”

Dagan adds that the primary advantage, though, is the quality of the cut. “No. 1 is that it cuts better. It performs better,” he said. “There’s no impact on golfers. You can operate them at night, doesn’t need to go in the day. You stand next to it and you can hardly hear it at all.”

Woodford is sending out the robots around 4pm three nights a week on the fairways and they run until 7am.

“It’s an interesting case study for the future,” said Andrew Leventis, Golf Australia’s Clubs and Facilities Manager-North.

“They leave both the units to cut in the middle of the night, and this has freed up the greens team to start to work on other projects. Who knows? Maybe we are looking at the future of night and early-morning golf course maintenance, because in many parts of the country, EPA laws prevent machinery to be used before 7am.”

Dean Dagan says the explosion of robot mowers in European golf clubs may well happen in Australia soon. He sees them as game changers. “Look, we’re not irrigated here and we don’t fertilise. It would be interesting to see it at a course that’s watered every day. But I’d encourage clubs to at least give it a trial. It’s been unbelievable.”

Watch Woodford GC’s video on its new robot mowers here