How old-school superintendents can embrace the newest technology
At the recent South Dakota GCSA annual meeting, Golfdom asked aloud the question: What stories should we be doing that we haven’t done yet?
A superintendent raised his hand and asked, “For an older superintendent like me … how could I ever get comfortable implementing all the new technology that’s being brought into the industry?”
Well, color us interested. It’s easy for Golfdom to write about new technologies, but not so easy to give guidance on how to be comfortable with new technology. After all, a few of our staffers (we’re not naming names) are still decidedly old school. One of them is proud to boast that he’s never used an emoji in a text message, ever.
Old school indeed.
Golfdom asked a few superintendents, plus a few companies slinging new tech to the industry, to address that South Dakota superintendent’s question. Here’s what we learned.
A greenkeeper and a perfect storm
Curtis Schriever is the greenkeeper at Wichita (Kan.) CC. He is not an early adopter of anything when it comes to his job, and he can prove it.
“When Serata (fungicide, Envu) came out, I’d always used (a different product) for Pythium,” he says. “And Serata was at a better price point. But I was like, ‘I’m going to give this a year and let everyone else figure out if it works or not.’ And I’ve obviously adopted it now, and it’s a fantastic product.”
Want further proof that Schriever is an old-school superintendent? When Golfdom spotlighted him in the March 2023 issue of the 19th Hole Q&A, he eschewed the title of director of agronomy or superintendent. He prefers “greenkeeper,” and that is the job title he goes by.
So why does Wichita CC have three Kress autonomous mowers taking care of the rough, plus new Toro autonomous triplexes mowing fairways?
Schriever says it was “a perfect storm.”
“We’ve got equipment we should probably be phasing out and bringing in a new fleet; we were due to do that last year, but I have one of the greatest equipment managers (Trevor Campbell) in the country,” he says. “Our mowers are still in great shape. They’re already paid off, so we can hold on to them. We can maintain our fleet and start bringing some of these new things in, just as the price point came down … some of the technology has gotten a little less expensive.”
Schriever attended an autonomous equipment forum in San Diego. While there, he decided there are two different types of superintendents: those who, when they lose a member of their crew, know they can immediately find a replacement, and those who are desperate for help and can’t afford to lose any members of their crew.
“I’m not saying we’re one or the other, but we definitely have more trouble finding people than we did pre-COVID,” Schriever says. “For the guys in that room that don’t have anyone walking through their door? Those are the guys who are super excited for this tech.”
Schriever says there has been the occasional hiccup with the implementation of the new machines, but says it isn’t different from adding any other new machine to the fleet — there’s always a learning curve. He also adds that he understands that new technologies aren’t perfect for every superintendent or course.
“It’s hard to compare property to property,” he says. “The one thing I’ll tell anyone, what got me on board with the (autonomous) fairway mowing was I really like the way The Toro Co. rolled their product out. They let you have a demo. They came out and hooked up a piece of equipment onto our current fairway mowers; they had us mow with this GPS unit for two weeks. It basically confirmed what cell service would be best.
“If somebody’s old school, that’s fine,” Schriever continues. “I don’t think this will ever be something that removes people from golf course maintenance. I see it as, for a high-end club where details matter, if I can remove the burden of mowing from our weekly plate like I did for fairways the last three days, when I didn’t have to put a person on a mower? We were able to do more things, like hand-water.”
Looking to the future
Matt McKinnon has worked at the same golf course for almost 30 years. He says when it comes to the tools available to golf course superintendents, it was all the same — until it all suddenly changed.
“It seemed like the golf industry, for a long time, was just on one level and it didn’t change,” he says. “But I think in the last five, maybe eight years, it’s really changed a lot.”
McKinnon is the director of golf course maintenance at Cragun’s Legacy Course in Brainerd, Minn. He says he’s hesitant when it comes to new golf maintenance technology, but then he also adds that they’ve just added their fourth Toro GPS sprayer.
“We’ve saved a lot of money just by having that product on the course,” he says. “We have 109 acres of fairways, tees and approaches. If you’re spraying with an old sprayer, that boom creates a lot of triangles. Those triangles add up to a lot of chemical in the bluegrass. If you can eliminate spraying six inches into the bluegrass, there’s a lot of savings there.”
Up next for McKinnon is the arrival of an autonomous Toro mower. He says they’re willing to look to the future because it is a challenge finding employees. Though he’s reluctant to add these new technologies to his fleet, he trusts that equipment manufacturers have his best interests in mind.
“I was skeptical of the GPS sprayers, but once we jumped into that, it opened my eyes,” he says. “These companies like Toro are really looking at the future. They’re not going to steer you wrong. An autonomous mower, or an autonomous bot maintaining the driving range … that’s a huge savings on my equipment going over there and chewing up balls. Everything is going to computer programs, software and digital. I think you almost have to embrace it.”
A paradigm shift
Based in Oceanside, Calif., and serving a territory that stretches from Colorado to Alaska and Hawaii, Tim Barrier, CGCS, has a unique perspective on technology and its adoption in the industry. Now the golf business development manager for robotic mower manufacturer Kress, Barrier was previously a superintendent for 30 years at Rancho Santa Fe (Calif.) GC, then a consultant, before joining Kress in the summer of 2024.
Barrier feels like the timing for his new job was good, because he believes there’s been a general change across the industry when it comes to accepting new technologies.
“I think what’s happened is it tipped over, probably in late 2024,” Barrier says. “There was a paradigm shift. Suddenly, superintendents started embracing these technologies as they emerged.”
Much of his time these days is spent traveling to distributors to “train a man to fish.” For both golf and lawn, Barrier says dealers have seen an increased demand for autonomous mowers.
It’s quite often that Barrier observes someone question robotics as a fad or fluke. As an example, he was recently giving a demonstration at a high-profile club when a member approached him, shaking his head in disbelief at what he was witnessing.
“He walked up and said, ‘We have a very old-fashioned membership here,’” Barrier says. “He’s a grumpy guy, maybe 85 years old. I said, ‘How old-fashioned? Are you still using horses and sheep?’ And he said, ‘That’s a very good point.’”
Barrier thinks multiple things happened all at once to usher in the paradigm shift he describes. The COVID-19 pandemic is one part. The supply chain interruption is another. And a big part of it is the shrinking labor pool golf courses are grappling with.
“The younger generation has shifted from working with their hands to sitting in front of a computer or having a camera in their hands,” Barrier says. “I was 16 years old when I got my first job raking bunkers. They trusted me with an 8-ton piece of metal when I was 18. That isn’t happening as much as it used to. I’m not saying it’s not happening, but the labor pool that was coming into golf is disappearing. Crews are aging. The older superintendent is resisting this, but he sees his crew aging right in front of him. They’re going to retire, and there’s really not a lot of younger guys to backfill.”
When asked about the reluctance of the old-school superintendent to embrace the mowers his company sells — and other new technologies — Barrier strikes a confident note. He believes that even the reluctant superintendent has an employee who will eventually be the one to embrace the change.
“The more seasoned superintendents, it’s fine for them to resist, as long as the guys around him execute the deployment and manage these mowers,” Barrier says. “He’ll be able to stay at his club longer because now the details are getting done.”
Barrier adds that these mowers do take some maintenance; they do take some care and attention. He thinks that someday golf courses will have a dedicated position for a person whose job is to manage the technology. He believes schools like Penn State, Michigan State, Texas A&M and the University of Florida will produce professionals whose job is to manage underground sensors, drones and robotics.
That’s what he sees in the future. But even today, he hopes superintendents realize the technology isn’t beyond them.
“There’s a three-letter word that superintendents need to get the idea: fun,” he says. “These things are fun. It’ll re-energize them. Guys in their 50s have the app in their hand all the time. Ask Jeff Miller, who was at Santaluz Club (in San Diego) for 22 years. His famous quote is, ‘I can mow 18 holes of rough on a Sunday from my couch.’”
Feel versus a fish finder
SGL Industries is new to golf, but it is not new to the art of growing and maintaining exceptional turf. SGL is a major player in the sports turf industry, with high-tech products helping sports turf managers for nearly 25 years. It’s their grow lights and robotic disease scouts putting in work at Wimbledon and most every NFL stadium with natural grass.
John Libro is the senior vice president and director of new markets for SGL. The most recent GCSAA show was SGL’s first. And for Libro and his team, they did notice a difference in interest level based on age.
“We were sort of chasing some of the bigger superintendents, some of the older guys, and trying to have discussions with them,” Libro says. “But in the meantime, their assistants? They were the ones following us. They were the ones hungry for knowledge.”
Libro compares it to an older fisherman who has been successful for decades. That fisherman didn’t use fish finders or depth finders, he’d use feel.
Libro says SGL is led by “an army” of agronomists, so even though they’re a tech company, they understand the end goal of their customers. He describes the company’s GreenGuard autonomous robot as a new tool for golf that has been proven in sports turf. A group of nine robots (two for each green) go out at night and scan the entire green with UVC light, searching for signs of disease. They can also sweep dew off the greens when the dew point is reached as a proactive way to avoid diseases.
These new tools might get treated like the way the old fisherman treats a fish finder, but Libro says companies like SGL are only interested in the success of their clients.
“I think they need to embrace technology and AI, and if you don’t, you’re going to get left behind in some ways,” he says. “I’ve seen more superintendents embracing technology than not. Companies like ours, we’re not just going to throw technology on top of them and say, ‘Good luck!’ We’re going to consult with them and show them how to leverage that knowledge.”
Libro believes new technology is being embraced not just by elite clubs, but also by middle-tier clubs trying to solve the common challenges superintendents face day to day.
“They’re both embracing technology the right way and not being intimidated by it,” he says. “And all the companies trying to provide insights to help them do a better job are there to hold everybody’s hand and make sure they’re doing it the right way.”
A pocketknife guy
Eric Bauer, director of agronomy at Bluejack National in Montgomery, Texas, admits he’s resistant to change.
“I’m one of your old-school superintendents when it comes to technology,” he says. “I’m a pocketknife guy. There’s a lot of good stuff out there, but I feel like I fell in love with being a superintendent because I can get out there and get my hands dirty. I walk my course every day, and I carry a putter.”
Still, he does see how some technology might be too good for even an old-school guy like him to resist.
“I am excited about GPS mapping for sprayers. I do use GDD modeling to predict growth regulator applications that’s offered by Syngenta and their alerts,” he says. “TurfRad (moisture mapping technology from TerraRad) really intrigues me. We use TDRs on greens, but you’re talking 4 1/2 acres. It’d be a lot better if I could map 120 acres.”
Bauer gets his irrigation from a well and adds that it’s not cheap.
“To be able to print after you mow every area of your course and say, ‘Here, make your irrigation adjustments off this,’ I think that’s great,” he says. “There are some technologies that can really help us … I could see taking a guy we dedicate to that.”
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