Going to have to agree that the cost of carts to the club is minimal. Carts are pure profit for a golf course for the most part and ClubCar and EZGo make their money up front, not based on how much their carts are used.
Kyle,
Carts are a profit center but I have to assume you are exagerating a bit when you speak of "pure profit". On average carts will be leased by most operators for about $70 per cart per month, so about $5000 a month assuming 72 carts or so.
Then you have to have a fairly large building to store the carts, charge the carts nightly, have a staff of 8-12 to have the fleet ready every day, a mechanic or at least a very dedicated cart guy that maintains the fleet, repairs, insurance AND, oh, I almost forgot, somewhere between $350,000 to $800,000 invested in a path around the golf course.
Pure profit
Spoken like a true non-owner!!!!
Sometimes I wonder if its really worth it but at least at my course I couldn't expect too many golfers to be able to walk a fairly hilly course in humid Atlanta. I have a lot of seniors who would simply have to quit.
Since I am a busy facility with around 35,000 rounds this year, without paths the course would look like a dust bowl this year and a mud pit during rainy years. Of course, no carts would drop the rounds to around 15,000 or so---hard to keep a course inexpensive on no cart revenue and only 15,000 rounds a year!
I belong to a club that has caddies that are required and I walk most my rounds--that model isn't cheap! Argueabley, carts help keep costs down and they undoubtedley make the game possible to a very large segment that would otherwise have to start playing shuffleboard.
I think the shame of the industry has been the uncontrolled/unregulated explosion in equipment technology that has made a set of clubs too expensive for the good of the game.