Royal Cinque Ports Golf Club, one of England’s most respected championship links courses, has invested in John Deere GPS spraying technology to bring even greater precision, efficiency and consistency to its turf management programme — backed by the training, setup and ongoing technical support of Tuckwells.
Founded in 1892 and set on the Kent coastline, Royal Cinque Ports offers sweeping views across the English Channel, with France visible from one end of the course and Ramsgate from the other. Maintaining a traditional links course of this calibre requires careful turf management, operational accuracy and confidence in both machinery and support.
The club’s greenkeeping operation is run by a team of 12, including the course manager, deputy course manager, first assistant, workshop manager and greenkeepers responsible for maintaining the course throughout the year.
For Course Manager Ben and his team, investing in John Deere GPS spraying technology marked a significant step forward in improving application accuracy, reducing overlap and supporting turf quality across the course.
The club first encountered the technology during a demonstration day at Prince’s Golf Club, where greenkeepers from across the South East were able to see the system working in a live course environment.
“We attended a demonstration day at Prince’s Golf Club where the technology was demonstrated on the course,” says Ben. “At that time, it was still relatively new within the turf industry, although it had already been used in agriculture.”
Seeing the sprayer operate in real conditions helped the team understand how precision application could support their maintenance programme and future-proof their approach.
For Royal Cinque Ports, accuracy was the key driver behind the investment.
“Legislation around chemical use is only going to get tighter in greenkeeping,” Ben explains. “The accuracy the system provides was the biggest benefit we were looking for.”
Compared with the club’s previous machine, the new sprayer represents a major upgrade in technology. While the machine comes well equipped as standard, Royal Cinque Ports worked with Tuckwells to select a specification that best suited the demands of the course.
“It’s probably the highest-specification machine we’ve ever had here at Royal Cinque Ports,” says Ben.
The specification includes individual GPS nozzle control, a John Deere StarFire receiver, five years of SF-RTK correction signal, sonic boom levelling, a chemical induction hopper and a 300-gallon spray tank.
The undulating nature of the course played an important role in several of those decisions.
“We’re quite an undulating site,” Ben explains. “The sonic boom levelling gives the operator confidence that the boom height is being maintained without constantly adjusting it while moving across the course. This allows the operator to focus more on driving and monitoring the application rather than manually adjusting boom height.”
The club also upgraded from the standard 200-gallon tank to a 300-gallon tank to match the capacity of its previous sprayer and maintain efficiency in the field.
They also selected a StarFire 7500 receiver with five years of SF-RTK signal included, helping to fix running costs over that period and support budget planning.
“It fixes the running costs for the next five years, which is important from a budgeting perspective,” Ben says.
Alongside the machine itself, the club places real value on the support provided by Tuckwells throughout the process — from quotation and delivery through to setup, handover and aftersales backup.
“From the pricing and quotation right through to delivery, the whole process with Tuckwells has been very easy,” Ben comments.
“The handover process was really thorough, and the support we’ve received from Tuckwells from a technical standpoint has been outstanding.”
Installation day included not only delivery of the sprayer, but also the setup of a mapping trolley, enabling the team to map greens, boundaries and obstacles with a high degree of accuracy before spraying. That initial setup was an important part of ensuring the club could get the full benefit from the technology from day one.
Accurate mapping plays a critical role in the performance of GPS spraying systems. Using the mapping trolley, the team was able to map greens and complex boundaries to within 2.5cm accuracy.
“You get out what you put in with this technology,” Ben explains. “The sprayer is incredibly accurate, but that accuracy depends on how well the course is mapped. You can clearly see the precision of the individual nozzle control right up to the edge of the greens.”
For the team at Royal Cinque Ports, this level of support has been an important part of the investment. Tuckwells has helped ensure the technology is not only delivered correctly, but properly introduced, understood and supported as part of the club’s day-to-day operation.
The club has also benefited from ongoing technical backup, including remote support from the Tuckwells team, allowing questions to be answered and issues to be resolved quickly without always needing to wait for an on-site visit.
For sprayer operator Haydn Gray, what first appeared to be a complex system soon became straightforward to use.
“There are a lot of menus and buttons, but it’s actually very easy to use. Everything is laid out clearly, so it’s simple to find what you need.”
Royal Cinque Ports has also been using John Deere Operations Center to analyse spraying data and gain further insight into machine performance and application accuracy. The system has already helped the team identify and correct small calibration differences in application rate — the kind of detail that can be difficult to spot without access to reliable data.
“Without the data, we probably wouldn’t have known exactly what was happening,” says Ben.
Looking ahead, the club hopes the technology will deliver measurable improvements in turf health, consistency and overall course presentation, while also supporting a more informed and efficient approach to spraying.
“With the increased accuracy of application, we hope to see improvements in turf quality because products are applied exactly where and how they’re intended,” Ben says.
“GPS and precision technology are only going to become more common in our industry. It’s something we need to embrace.”
With precision mapping, data-led spraying and advanced machine control now embedded in its maintenance programme, Royal Cinque Ports Golf Club is well placed to maintain its historic links to championship standards for years to come.
And with Tuckwells providing not only the equipment, but also the guidance, setup, training and ongoing technical support behind it, the club has a partner helping it get the very best from its investment.
