A robotic fleet near the Bay

Dublin Ranch Golf Course, a KemperSports-managed property, acquired a robotic fleet of four mowers in late fall 2024 to assist in day-to-day mowing operations. DRGC partnered with URS Robotics and is using their Nexmow MS1 robotic mower to enhance turf conditions at the par-63 executive course located in Dublin, California, near the East Bay.

“We couldn’t do it without them,” superintendent Danny Fielder said, “especially in the winter when we get so much rain that I can’t get any other mowing equipment on the course.”

The light footprint of the robots — just 74 pounds — allows Fielder and the DRGC team to place mowers in sensitive turf areas as well as areas that are typically too wet to mow with conventual heavy turf equipment.

The ability to combine up to 10 mowers in a given area with “Fleet” mode allows for the quick and accurate mowing of large turf areas across the course like fairways and roughs. And on-the-fly battery swapping allows DRGC to mow 8 hours or more in a single day.

Fielder also started testing Nexmow’s M2 in December 2024 on fairways and rough on the second, third and fourth holes. He also built his own prototype solar charging station to power the equipment. “These guys have been a lot of fun to work with,” Fielder said, “and they’ve allowed me to experiment a lot, and a lot of the features on the new robot and app for the phone have suggestions that I gave them built-in.”

DRGC, which opened in 2004, maintains perennial ryegrass fairways and roughs, and bentgrass greens and tees across its more than 80 acres. The course was designed by Robert Trent Jones, Jr. and has been managed by KemperSports since 2014. Signal Hill Ventures owns the course.