ORLANDO, Florida — It might seem a bit odd to find a company whose mission is to produce ultra quiet propulsion for aircraft and drones at the 100th anniversary of the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America's Conference and Trade Show.
But Crossville, Tennessee-based Whisper Aero is promoting what it calls the world’s first aerospace technology powered quiet leaf blower. Anyone whose backswing has been interrupted by maintenance staff blowing pine straw or leaves off the course can appreciate this product.
It’s so quiet you can hear a pin drop. Not really, but the lack of noise and its power is impressive. .
The company’s director of air management, Andrew Terajewicz, was showing off the Tone Outdoors Tone T1 leaf blower that is billed as 80% quieter than gas handhelds and 60% more powerful.
"A traditional leaf blower is one of the loudest and most intrusive landscaping outdoor power equipment products," Terajewicz says. "We’ve used our technology, scaled it down, and essentially launched the quietest high performing handheld leaf blower that's on the market today."
The handheld leaf blower is a $1.4 billion market in the United States, according to Terajewicz.
"A lot of folks at our company golf, and quiet is part of the package we’re selling, right?" he says. "So we wanted to directly attack golf because it’s a problem people are aware of, it’s in the media, and there is lots of legislation and (noise) ordinances that are being increasingly enacted across the United States. It was like the perfect problem to solve."
The green colored Tone leaf blower, with battery included, costs $599 unless you’re interested in the gold model, which is an additional $100.
"Silence is golden," laughed Terajewicz, who says the gold-colored product is a limited edition run. "The price point from our conversations has not really been a hurdle for businesses. I would say probably the biggest hurdle is being new to the market and a new brand. We’re not going to execute dealer distributors. We’re skipping that so golf courses can order directly from us. So that's a little bit different than the traditional purchasing model."
The company's goal is to sell 10,000 units by the end of 2026.
"It’s pretty meaty, but we’re not focusing on just golf courses," he says. "It’s neighborhoods in and around golf courses, and even resort properties like the Four Seasons or the Ritz can benefit.”
FIREFLY AUTOMATIX IS THE FUTURE
The Utah turf farmers who founded FireFly Automatix 16 years ago could have never imagined the technology that is being used today, or that the company just might be shaping the future mowing procedures for professional golf tournaments.
FireFly became the first company to use autonomous turf equipment —
FireFly Autonomous Mowing Platforms (AMPs) — to mow fairways at a PGA Tour event when it worked magic at the 2024 Black Desert Championship.
Since then, the company was contracted for five more PGA and LPGA tournaments, with two more on line this year, according to FireFly national sales director Alex Poll.
FireFly's $185,000 mowers are fully electric, with no hydraulics or oil. "There are no fluids whatsoever, so nothing to spill on the golf course," Poll says.
The price tag is steep for some golf courses, but a deeper dive into the equation shows why the cost may make sense.
"There is hardly any maintenance, and obviously no labor to operate it," Poll says. "There’s no fuel, so it's about a 95 percent fuel savings. And the longevity of it too is amazing. This machine doesn't have an engine transmission or hydraulics — all of those things that make a normal mower a 4,000-hour unit. This is a 10,000-hour unit that is going to last a really long time."
FireFly uses what’s called RTK technology, which is basically a GPS cellular signal to triangulate mowing patterns down to 2-centimeter accuracy per 100-inch wide cut.
"And once we map a fairway you can cut any direction, at any angle, at whatever pattern you want and have that hold," Poll says. "And then you can save up to as many fairway patterns as you want per hole. So you can just tell the machine to 'Do this today' and it'll go do it perfectly.”
Firefly’s boasts the only fairway mower built from the ground up to be autonomous.
"We're high acreage, high precision, and we're using reels versus blades," Poll says. "We aren't slapping autonomy on a current platform like some of the other companies. That’s not the world we play in."
FireFly gained the golfing world’s attention with its mowing at the PGA Tour event in Utah, making a top showing in its own backyard so to speak. And the professional tournament work grew organically from there.
"The biggest thing they liked was the accuracy," Poll says. "We put true north-south striping throughout the whole course. So no matter where you were standing on any fairway on the course the stripes looked like they were going through from fairway to fairway to fairway. And second, the accuracy while operating in the dark. We were mowing at 3 o’clock in the morning and had the fairways look perfect every single time without having any issues with labor out there."
SAVING BUNKERS FROM THEMSELVES
Bunkers can become contaminated, sometimes within 5 to 7 years, by native soil, rocks and debris. And the first inclination by ownership, the course superintendent and membership when this happens is to cry for new sand.
While that is one answer, it can be expensive. There is another solution that more courses are starting to turn to called the Sand Saver.
It is a water filtration cleaning system invented by Texas-based Specialty Sand & Services that renews bunker sand by washing and separating the silt, clay and large particles, essentially recycling the best sand for reuse.
The system costs $29,000 to rent for one month, which includes training. The Sand Saver can be run by a two-person operation, says company spokeswoman Lena Connery.
The system, which was invented three years ago, can handle a load of 75-100 tons of sand per day, Connery says.
"Courses that have rented it said that it has saved them about 80 percent of the cost they were quoted for new sand,” she says. "You do have 5-8 percent of waste, so you will need a few refresher loads of new sand, but the cost is nowhere near the cost of all new sand."
Specialty Sands & Services has five of the machines to rent, and also can sell a machine to clients at a cost of $150,000.
A recent field test comparison at a golf course in Texas provided some eye-opening results.
"The course’s dirty sand was draining at six inches per hour," Connery says. "After we washed it, it was draining at 61 inches per hour. And the new sand that they were going to buy was draining at 21 inches per hour. So our washed sand had a better drainage rate than even the new sand."
A recent U.S. client was Hazeltine National Golf Club in Minnesota, and the company has sold a unit to Cabot Saint Lucia.
Connery says most of the interested clients have been from countries outside of the United States.
"We've had people from Barbados, Bermuda and England because they can’t get good sand," she says. "Even the new sand that they buy they put through our system."
