Automated golf course maintenance from Kress
I’m on the uh the crest stand and Crest over the last few years have always been front and center of every show they’ve done and there’s been many and here we are right at one of the many entrances to the show but we are front and center and I’m with Tony meser who’s the sales director of CR how was yesterday for you Tony yesterday was really good so morning starts off incredibly busy um obviously when one nipped off to lunch and then came back in the afternoon um but it was really really good we got some really good interaction with some good golf courses um dealers and other sports places but it’s been really really positive so far um a little bit of a trick so we giv out a few vouchers for for for an establishment across the road so we actually split our team into two so someone across there and some here so people buy from people right so you got the short end you’re in the stand rather than in the bar I stayed here cuz I gave a speech last night so but after it I might be over there but no it’s been really positive for us um and it’s been really good getting to know some people and explaining who we are and what we’re about so it’s been good and what is it that’s been drawing people onto the stand is there one or two products or one two things that been drawing them on I think to be honest there’s a there’s a whole there’s a whole piece with especially with golf courses with automation coming towards them um if you take last year as an example it was so wet last year early doors and a lot of golf courses I’ve spoken to weren’t even able to get to some of their um bits of grass Turf to cut before Easter cuz it was so wet so they’re all looking at robots looking at ways to reduce compaction reduce mess ability to cut grass that they don’t want to cut anymore you know I guess semi- rough and those sort of areas but it’s been a real change a sea change I think in the industry and not not just for the industry but for us as well where golf courses are coming towards automation everyone knows they need to do it and try and explore the best option for them so that’s been a huge draw and obviously we got our commercial tools so the commercial tools is all about going Greener being more sustainable um low low habes um low zero emissions when you’re operating and actually a a much smaller running cost compared to fossil fuels but with fossil fuel power so there’s a lot a lot to talk about a lot of interest um but I think the draw initi robots and they find out about the tools and that’s been really good it’s funny with robots it used to be people were saying oh we can’t have robots will cost people jobs but now employment people people good workers are like hen teeth so now the robots can fill the Gap exactly we see it almost as a cycle right so we’ve got we got a a golf course that we cut our teeth on um down in as an example family run go course it’s a it’s a pay and play but he was cutting grass at 10:00 at night and he wanted to go home with his young kids but he couldn’t find someone to ride a mower so the option in bad weather is to minimum wage work in a coffee shop ride a mower you know and it’s it’s a real struggle we know that wages are low generally in sports turf golf courses Etc but I see a Natural Evolution where actually greens Keepers can get paid a bit more money golf horses can afford to retain their staff and give them a bit more and retain the expertise and some really good stuff and the robots will cut the stuff that no one else wants to cut so I can see that as a real sea change in the industry it’s just a case of getting everybody’s head around it I think isn’t it absolutely and it’s not designed we’re not we’re not saying this here to replace staff it’s an help Force as additional member of staff and that’s really important I think the battery side of thing as well from a golf course perspective they’re ideally suited because you’re not looking for something with 250 Mi or 300 M range it’s everything’s closer to home you probably know more than a mile or two miles away from the from the sheds absolutely and you know what it also enables you to do because there’s less than half the noise um it en Ables you to operate in areas that you could traditionally operate with a petrol product right so if you got a blower running it’s it’s a lot of noise you know you use use a battery power blower ODS are less than half the noise so it never should to go around club houses and somewhere go forces out hotels and things like that and even with a robotic mowers we’re quite unique because you don’t have to have a robot mower with a charging station on a piece of grass literally because you’ve mapped it already you can pick it up move it to one piece another piece another piece another piece and that that keeps control of the Box mowing area a nice strip and it just gives the ability for the grounds ma staff around the hotel which to normally a separate team right to be able to go in a lot earlier and there’s no time restrictions so it’s always cut there’s no noise and it gives them a lot more time to do other the stuff of the day I first spoke to Jim your colleague a couple of years ago maybe three years ago I can’t remember about the 8 Minute charge are are your Rivals your competitors getting closer to that 8 minutes now no not really to be honest and that’s the fundament fundamental issue of lithium ion right so lithium iron the iron causes the friction when you when you’re charging or when you’re using it so um what happens is the iron using it creates heat when you charging creates heat and that damages the cells because we don’t have that issue we can charge as fast as we like and not damaging cells no one still has that technology apart from us in the industry and we got a global patent on that um but but for us the 8 Minute charge is really impressive but even the Main’s charge is only 22 minutes for 11 a battery that’s not to 100% but the other messages we’re now talking about as well as the 8 Minute charge are things like do you know what actually our battery should in theory last four times the life of somebody else’s but actually lithium iron is not good you know lithium to mine is not a great thing for the environment so being a green company we say one person two batteries for 8 years and we can do completely life cycle of battery so we got a company that we work with who can recycle lithium completely or give it a second life you know like a body warmer jacket whatever so we’ve trying to think about every aspect of that so the whole message is evolving but a lot of that is has to be about Roi saving money doing a bit for the environment low noise and everything else so we see it as a complete package the 8 minutes is brilliant and it saves a lot of downtime and so you get more productivity out of the team um yeah so it’s there’s a whole number of things talk about so we’ve kind of evolved it’s always interesting when you come on to the crest stand and Tony you’ve been you’ve been very good I’ve thoroughly enjoyed it so I’ll let you get back to doing what you do in the stand thank you and thank you very much for your time thank you for coming on thank you
Automated golf course maintenance from Kress
Tony Macer from Kress UK joined Turf Matters at BTME 2025 to talk more about changes in the industry towards automation.
