Utah’s Black Desert Resort Golf Course is breaking new ground in every sense of the word this week, hosting the state’s first PGA Tour event in more than 60 years.
The inaugural Black Desert Championship (October 9-13), part of the Fall Series, will also mark the first time a PGA Tour event will be held on a course where automatic mowers are used to mow the fairways. Worth noting. .
A group of four electric autonomous mowing platforms, supplied by Salt Lake City-based agricultural machinery company FireFly, takes four hours to mow all 18 fairways on the 7,371-yard, 71-par course.
Each 5-row mower is 2.4 meters wide and has four independent motors and a rechargeable battery pack that can run for 5 hours on a single charge. AMPs are dispatched overnight and begin their shifts at 2 a.m., allowing the human workforce to focus on green, tee, and perimeter maintenance later in the day.
Steve Aposian, co-founder of FireFly, said: “We are truly honored to have been chosen by Black Desert to maintain the fairways at such a prestigious event. It also highlights that it is the only autonomous lawn mower that can perform such a task.
He further added: “Using our machines, groundskeepers are able to make better use of their time. They get to do jobs they wouldn’t otherwise be able to do, and ultimately improve the course. Improves playability.
“By leveraging FireFly’s QuickPlan software, the team was able to create a mowing pattern for each fairway that perfectly aligned the direction of the stripes throughout the course. This kind of precision, which is extremely difficult to achieve with manual mowers, is available with AMP’s GPS guidance. , its ability to consistently cut straight lines even at night makes it an invaluable asset for tournaments that require night mowing.”
Black Desert manager Ken Yates was initially skeptical about replacing his traditional fairway mowing team with automated machines, but he was soon sold on. “I’m used to one person sitting on the mower,” he said. “But these cars have proven they can do it, and I’m comfortable with them. They’re doing a great job. Once we mapped the course, it was very easy.”
Black Desert Resort opened less than two years ago and was one of the last design projects the late Tom Weiskopf worked on before his death in August 2022.
