How Robotic Mowing Is Transforming Daily Life At Rowlands Castle Golf Club

Kevin Hensman has managed Rowlands Castle Golf Club for six years, and for most of that time he's believed autonomous mowing technology would eventually play a central role in course maintenance. That belief became reality in September, when the club introduced a fleet of Kress robotic mowers. A few months on, Kevin says the impact on day-to-day operations has already been significant.

"When I took over six years ago, I texted a picture of a robot mower to my boss and said: 'It's going to happen one day. I want one of these.' They've always been at the back of my mind." Kevin's team of five had found maintaining the course was a consistent game of catch up. "We used to maybe just about get everything done by Friday, but we were always chasing our tails," he says.

Winter conditions have traditionally made that balance harder still. As a parkland site, Rowlands Castle can't always get conventional machinery onto the course during the colder months, which often leaves long grass and a lengthy recovery period once spring arrives. "Normally as the weather finally starts to warm up and dry out, we have a mountain of grass to cut, and by the end of April we are finally getting there," Kevin explains.

However, this winter was different as the robotic mowers kept working through the season, quietly maintaining fairways and key areas and preserving presentation standards that would usually have slipped. "The mowers have just been ticking over keeping the place neat all winter," Kevin says. "In January I was walking around one of the lovely little par-three holes and that's when it really hit me. It was looking lovely and we wouldn't normally have got that cut until probably April. That's when I knew that for this site, they are an absolute game changer."

The mowers' light weight has also proved useful during the club's bunker renovations, where freshly laid turf is too delicate for ride-on equipment. There was some early scepticism among members more accustomed to traditional maintenance, but Kevin says the results won people over quickly. For him, the biggest benefit hasn't been the quality of the cut alone, but the time it has freed up for other work. "They just free us up to do other things," he says.

That time is now going into finishing touches that often get overlooked when a team is stretched, from strimming and edging to emptying bins. The change has also altered the rhythm of the working day. Rather than spending hours on machinery trying to keep pace with grass growth, staff are now more visible around the course carrying out improvement work.

This is a great example of a club willing to adopt modern technology and reaping its benefits. For golf clubs facing pressure on staffing, budgets and presentation standards, Rowlands Castle's experience points to how robotic mowing can support modern course maintenance without compromising on quality, particularly through the difficult winter months when conventional machinery struggles most.