Once a flourishing sport, golf has experienced shifts in popularity over the years. In 2016, around 23.82 million golfers enjoyed the game.
Fast forward to 2024, and this number has evolved, mirroring the dynamic changes in the golf industry landscape. Explore the transformative role of drones in the golf industry, reshaping how we perceive and experience the game.
The sport faces challenges in capturing the interest of younger generations, and the absence of a prominent figure akin to Tiger Woods may contribute to this decline.
However, amidst these challenges, technology emerges as a hope for golf course owners.
With their transformative power, drones offer a lifeline to the golf industry. They present an opportunity for enhanced marketing strategies and cost-effective maintenance of golf courses.
In this dynamic landscape, it’s crucial to explore how drones reshape the golfing experience and delve into the best drone options tailored for the job. Let’s unravel the symbiotic relationship between golf and drone technology, paving the way for a revitalized future for this beloved sport.
Construction and Planning
From the beginning stages of putting up a golf course, a drone could already be a valuable tool. The development of a golf course is a cumbersome and expensive project. The topography of the project area plays a huge role in determining the amount of work needed.
Drones aren’t just helpful in giving you a bird’s eye view of the proposed project site. They can also create 3D topography maps using photogrammetry. With this technique, a drone can capture hundreds of overlapping high-resolution images of your project site from various angles.
Then, the software combines these photos into a fully navigable 3D model.
The model allows you to make a limitless number of distance, area, and volume measurements, which could be helpful when designing the golf course.
Once construction is underway, drone flybys periodically check the work status. This is faster and more efficient than being on the ground to manage the project.
Having eyes on the sky can also show things that would otherwise have been difficult to spot from the ground, such as potential hazards or uneven patches of grass.
Marketing
Most ready-to-use drones come with 4K video recording capabilities and mechanical gimbal stabilization, perfect for capturing captivating aerial footage of your golf course. These videos are an excellent way of showing off how good your golf course looks at a scale that videos cannot capture on the ground.
One of the best ways to entice new golfers or retain those already playing in your course is to do an aerial pathway video. This type of video follows the journey of the golf ball from the tee to the hole.
By portraying the changes in terrain, golfers can formulate a strategy for approaching the hole. An aerial pathway video is an excellent way of showing off the beauty of your golf course.
You can offer a virtual tour of your golf course by employing the same photogrammetry technique in mapping the course’s topography. A 3D model isn’t just a technically accurate representation of your course – it’s also a fun and interactive tool for marketing.
The model can be uploaded to your website, allowing potential visitors to take a virtual tour they can fully control.
Golf Course Maintenance
Maintaining a Ginormous golf course is both challenging and expensive. Not only do you have to ensure that trees, fences, and buildings are repaired as soon as they are damaged, but you also need to track the health of your turf. Drones are more than capable of helping you out on this end.
Likewise, drones give you a quick overview of the course while it is being constructed. It can also periodically check for structural damages. This can be particularly important after nasty rains or intense winds.
Suppose there are visible damages to the fairway and greens. You can send off maintenance personnel to make the course playable immediately.
When maintaining your turf’s health, it is a good idea to call on technology that will reveal what our eyes cannot see. We may see all turfs as green but reflect energy at frequencies we cannot perceive.
Yet, a drone with Normalized Differentiation Vegetation Index (NDVI) sensors can pick up these energy frequencies.
NDVI sensors work by recording the intensity of Near-Infrared Light. This measures how receptive plants are to photosynthesis by flying a drone with an NDVI sensor around your golf course.
You can identify unhealthy turf patches and allocate more irrigation or fertilizers. Aside from spot problem early detection. An NDVI survey also allows you to allocate resources optimally and reduce maintenance costs.
What are the advantages of using drones in golf courses?
Drones aren’t the cheapest tech, and there’s quite a learning curve before you can use them properly. You can also play a professional to fly the drone, adding to your regular expenses.
What’s the point of using a drone anyway?
Drones bring a creative content type that allows golf course owners to showcase their facilities uniquely and memorably. Having a birds-eye view of a golf course allows players to get a read of the course without actually touching foot on the first tee.
Content like this, with a video that offers a quick and exciting view of the course’s enticing features, excites people about the game.
Speed
A person can also do everything that a drone can do. Yet, there needs to be a way for a person to compete with the speed of a drone. Even surveying the entire extent of a golf course for damages can take a team of ten people several hours to finish. A drone can cover the same area in an hour or so.
Best of all, you can capture videos with a drone to always return to later if you need to consult with professional repair services.
Even while planning and constructing a golf course, drones can save you from unnecessary work and unreliable data.
You no longer need a person on the ground to track and report the project’s status. You can have a drone scan over the course along a pre-planned flight path and review the video from the comfort of your office or home.
Cheaper in the long run.
While drones aren’t cheap, they aren’t that expensive, especially compared to the other costs of building and maintaining a golf course. You can certainly get a high-quality camera drone for less than $2000.
If you want an NDVI sensor for turf maintenance, you must add around $1000 for your initial expenditure.
Software for photogrammetry is typically available at a subscription rate – expect to spend $100 to $200++ per month for the more professional versions.
If you’re not going to fly the drone yourself, then you’ll need to pay for the services of a professional drone pilot. The drone service rates may vary from state to state, depending on what assistance you need. For instance, drone mapping is typically more expensive than drone photography or filmmaking. You can expect to pay at least $1000 for a professional drone job.
These expenses may seem like a lot, but you’re saving on the costs of improper or delayed maintenance, poor infrastructure planning, and the wage of the several people it will take to do the job of a single drone.
There’s also the potential opportunity cost if you use something other than aerial videos for marketing your golf course, especially when other golf courses have more enticing marketing materials.
Unique capabilities
No other technology can do what drones do at the same ease and cost. Before drones, the only way to capture aerial photos, videos, or data was to fly a helicopter with a dedicated operator on board with the necessary equipment.
There were several disadvantages to this approach. It was more dangerous for everyone involved. The helicopter flights were not repeatable, and hiring a helicopter was expensive.
Before photogrammetry began using drones, an area’s topography model involved having surveyors make slope and terrain measurements on the ground.
In comparison, this was a very accurate method. It would have taken several weeks for a single surveyor team to collect topography data for an area the size of a typical golf course. A drone only needs several minutes to manage the necessary photos, which are then processed by dedicated software.
The Interactive Experience:
Golfers are looking for that edge to determine which club to use when setting up a particular shot. Aerial drones can map the course to provide golfers with an interactive experience. This allows the golfer to decrease their strokes on the course. This feature may be a deciding factor for a golfer who wants to join a club.
Aerial Innovators is dedicated to serving the Orlando metro area with high-quality data and first-class customer service. Our services are intended to reduce the cost of current operations, Increase business efficiency/speed, and spur innovation and insights to raise customer profits.
Conclusion
In the ever-evolving landscape of golf, drones emerge as essential game-changers. From construction planning to marketing strategies and maintenance, these aerial marvels redefine the narrative for golf course owners.
Why are drones essential for golf courses?
Drones bring speed and cost-effectiveness, outpacing traditional methods and providing unmatched aerial data.
Aerial Innovators, dedicated to Orlando’s metro area, offers unparalleled aerial pathway videos and drone services.
Ready to soar to new heights?
Contact Aerial Innovators today and unlock the full potential of your golf course. Elevate your golfing experience with innovative solutions that redefine the game.
Your journey to a revitalized future for your beloved golf course begins here.
