New robotic technology the latest advancement in maintaining Mayobridge Golf Club's pristine course
From ploughing rough farmland with horses to cutting pristine golfing fairways with robots - it has been quite the journey for one Co. Down farm in just two generations.
When Joe Fegan decided to turn his farm in Mayobridge into a golf course, many around the area thought he was crazy. But after many years of planning with son Shane, who is also a keen golfer, including digger work, building tees, greens, drainage, seeding and planting, all the hard work by Joe finally paid off.
He had built a golf course with his own hands and own money, an amazing feat in what should have been his retirement years.
So, from humble beginnings a 9-hole golf course was opened in 1999, on which Joe and his brother Fred cut the fairways with old trail gang mowers behind tractors and old jeeps. Things have certainly moved on since then. Mayobridge Golf Club is now an 18-hole Par 67 course with a thriving membership, plus pay and play and society golfers.
Joe who passed away in 2021 aged 91, and his brother Fred who passed in 2024 would be amazed by the new technology now cutting all 18 fairways at Mayobridge.
The next generation, Joe’s two sons Shane and Martin have invested in two Beltronics BigMow Robotic Mowers. The robots are fully autonomous, cutting all 18 fairways between them. They cut both day and night, in perfectly straight lines, when their battery gets low, they know to head back to base for a charge. Then after charging they return to the exact spot to resume cutting where they left off.
As Shane says: “the cut quality is better than you get with ride on diesel fairway mowers, the finish is brilliantly level, and they are lighter giving less ground compaction especially in wet conditions. We estimate the amount saved in diesel and labour is enough to pay for both robots in three and a half years. The fairways have never looked better, and because the robots mow the borders between fairway and rough exactly the same each time the definition between them looks amazing.”
So when it came to naming the two new Robotic mowers, it was only fitting that they be called Joe and Fred, it was them after all, who first mowed the fairways at Mayobridge.
Shane is so confident in the new technology that he along with the third generation of Fegan’s, his second oldest son Adam, have started a new company, Crossan Robotics, as the main Northern Ireland Dealer for the BigMow Robots.
The robots are not just ideal for golf courses they are also Ideal for sports pitches, and large grass areas that need to be maintained to a high level. So from horses to robots, technology is being embraced in Mayobridge.