![]() Perhaps the element most impactful to Pik’r’s potential success is the labour crisis across every industry, including golf. In order of appearance: Hollrock & #GolfRobot #BallPickingRobot #Pikr #GolfAutomation /RlCQjcWDko- Korechi Innovations Inc. The Pik'r™ golf ball picking robot automates all major golf ball picking machines in the market. Watching the video on the Korechi website is almost mesmerizing for a golfer.) There really is a ‘wow factor’ when you see it.” (He’s right. While high-volume ranges (15,000 balls and up daily) are the target market, Clark says it is Pik’r’s cool technology and uniqueness that intrigues these clubs. Since the high-capacity Pik’r can retrieve up to 4,000 balls in an hour and run 10 hours on a single charge of its lithium batteries, Clark was somewhat flummoxed by the number of high-end clubs with relatively small memberships that expressed interest. “Calls and emails came flooding in from clubs in Canada and the U.S. “Now I know how it feels when something goes viral,” says Clark. “But, we asked ourselves, is there a market for this? Or is this the solution to a problem nobody has?”ĭuring the subsequent two (pandemic) years, there was extensive testing at the Oshawa Golf and Curling Club until, this fall, the Pik’r was revealed in what Clark calls a “soft release” on social media and LinkedIn. “There were about 20 of us standing there watching this thing go back and forth across the range like a Zamboni, just scooping up every ball,” recalls Jim Clark, Korechi’s Chief Sales and Marketing Officer. The engineers at Korechi took that insight, rigged up a universal hitch and returned to the course. Such mowers are already marketed by other, more prominent companies so the course superintendent wondered whether the robot could be harnessed to a gang-style range ball picker instead. In 2019, they demonstrated a unit at a golf course, thinking it would work as an autonomous mower. Korechi Innovations Inc., based in Oshawa, Ont., for several years has been producing agricultural robots for seeding, weeding, cultivating and other routine farming tasks. This latest innovation is the Korechi Pik’r, an automated robot that hooks up to any existing golf ball picking unit. (This pleasure intensified exponentially if you knew the person driving said picker.) Yes, the days of taking wicked pleasure from hitting the screen-enshrouded ball picker at the driving range may be numbered. It appears modern technology is about to threaten another time-honoured golf tradition.
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