Walking in the UK versus Walking in South Carolina

[Lou_Duran]

Brent,

I am sorry, but I thought you were saying that some courses were designed with features to intentionally force golfers to ride (as opposed to making the course better or more interesting), and that some golfers play golf so they can ride a cart around.  I was responding to that.

Actually, if a private course can force the use of carts and still fill every tee time, charging a cart fee may make some sense.  In the case of Great Southwest, the tee sheet was seldom completely full in the weekend mornings, most folks rode anyways during the hot months of May - Sept., so it was not a wise policy they imposed (it intensified the turnover of members even more).  At least they made no bones about its purpose- to maximize revenues during peak times- and they did allow walking so long as the walker paid the cart fee.  As far as I know, I was probably the only member that ever took them up on that offer- most of the membership thought that I was nuts, though I had wide support when I gathered over hundred signatures in a couple of days to rescind the policy (to no avail).   

[Brent Hutto]

The private course logic is of course somewhat different than that of a semi-private in a market way overbuilt for public and semi-private golf (like Crickentree). The fly in the ointment at Crickentree was that they did (at that time anyway) an awful lot of business selling blocks of tee times to out-of-state tour operators. They'd get Northern (during the winter) or Japanese players who would stop off for a day on their way to the coast and play the course on a weekday. The deal was the tour operator paid nothing for the tee time and the course charged cart fees and sold food/drinks.

So apparently when these guys who were playing on a package-fee deal but forking over $25 for a cart fee saw me strolling along the course they tended to go in and whine about the $25. Given that the course was only charging me $100 a month to play my six or eight walking rounds I guess they decided I wasn't worth pissing off the $25/round tourists. Personally, I think they'd have been better off accepting my offer to pay the $25 but I'm no businessman. Actually, I'm not sure they were either.

[Sean_A]

Sean

Choice is a wonderful concept, iyes, if you have it. No course bans carts that I am aware, some just don’t have that facility, but some cart courses ban walking – No Walking Courses - what was that you were saying about ‘Choice is a wonderful concept’

Melvyn

Melvyn

Are you kidding me?  You are gonna stand there and tell me about the next to nothing percentage of courses that don't allow walking and then say the consumer doesn't have a choice?  Its a ridiculous argument that will take you nowhere.  With all the courses out there everyone can easily be accommodated for their little hang ups.  Live and let live.

Ciao

[Jason McNamara]

I am all for hyperbole, but those summer days in the Southeast have humidity levels more in the 50-60% range.  It's still disgusting, granted, but the 90%+ readings are only at night - or during a storm.

And I'd rather walk, but I am OK with carts for meteorological* or (legitimate) topographical** purposes.  That said, I hate courses that require carts because the routing has to accommodate an extra couple hundred houses, and/or charge me the same to walk.  (And especially don't give me that crap about how walking is slower than your carts on paths.)


* When it's a summer afternoon in Houston, you want a cart, because you can race back to cover when that storm comes out of nowhere.  Melvyn can now argue that true golf is not played in any area which gets more than one lightning strike per decade.

** One of these days I am going to play Kapalua, and I am going to ride, and I am not angst-ridden about it.  I am also still going to call it golf, and I expect I will enjoy it thoroughly.

[Ulrich Mayring]

How about this: a proliferation of carts changes the culture of golf. Carts change it from being a serious sport to a recreational activity. Playing golf in a cart-culture is like going to the movies or hanging out in a pub. Something you do when you're bored. In countries without a cart-culture you won't see golfers wearing jeans and drinking beer on the courses. The spirit of the game - including moderately quick play - is still observed.

Any merit to this argument? I don't know much about cart-cultures, the above is pure conjecture on my part.

Ulrich

[Jud_T]

ok-here's the math:

calories burned in 1 hour for a 190 lb. male cartballing=302, walking and carrying = 474.  So for a 4 hour round that's 688 extra calories burned, which at 210 calories a pop equals 3.28 pints of Guiness!! Melvyn, I'm sold!!!!

[Melvyn Morrow]

Sean

If any course that calls itself a golf course bans Walking, then it is not a Golf Course. It only takes one and I believe there is more than one in the world.

Jason

Golf has been played at St Andrews since the 15th Century (1400AD) over 600 years. I can trace my own family playing golf back to 1771 at St Andrews. In all that time everyone walked, for centuries everyone walked for over 550 years every one walked. After WW2, the odd cart started to appear resulting in 50 years of the cart being around mainly in America. Therefore, the history of the game is clear it is a walking game.

Introduce a mechanical device to take you around the course is an aid, fine for those that need them but otherwise an aid for the fit. Just like distance aids they are there to ease the life of the player, they do the walking, they work out distance, some down to the nearest yard. Yet they are what they are, outside aids to give advantage to able-bodied players.

Why the R&A never acted is more down to their inability to govern the game of golf.

Ride a cart, use aids do what you want but do not pretend you are playing golf. History proves that you are not, over six centuries at the Home of Golf TOC proves you are not, all majors are Walking Competitions proves you are not. Call your game Cart Ball, Cart Golf or whatever but don’t go against the facts of history, to play golf you have to walk.

In the early days if you could not walk you did not play golf, today the only good thing about the cart is that it allows those who need assisted mobility to play on a golf course.

The Cart may well be a culture thing, it may well be the excuse many use to build courses in unsuitable locations. Nevertheless, do not think it is for the sake of the game. It has nothing to do with golf its about money, about making money, of utilising every option to make money, golf never comes first, nor do the players or golfers, you are just the generators of money for these enterprises.

Carts and the modern culture are all about money and an easy life.

Whatever your feeling history shows that Golf is a walking game.

Enjoy your game, enjoy your carts, enjoy yourselves and to those who play golf enjoy your round. 

Melvyn

[Michael Whitaker]

First, let me apologize to everyone for starting a thread that would lead to some of the crappola that has been posted here.

Second, let me say that most of the folks posting on MY SUBJECT have no idea what the hell they are talking about.

You want to walk when you play golf... walk.

You want to ride when you play golf... ride.

What an arrogant attitude it is to tell someone that they are not a "golfer" if they ride in a cart. I'll bet this kind of logic was used to criticize "golfers" when they first came up with the idea of hiring someone to carry their clubs. I can almost hear one of Melvyn's ancestors exclaiming, "How can you say you're playing golf... you're not even carrying your own clubs!!!" Hell, some of the well-to-do even used ponies back then to "cart" themselves around the course.

Walking a golf course adds an element to the game that cannot be gotten in any other way. That is why I prefer to walk whenever possible. Period.

But, the reason I started this thread was to state categorically that IMO there are times when it is foolish to walk... extreme heat and humidity being one of those times. In the case of my experience at May River we were completely caught off guard by the extreme humidity that sucked the energy out of us. After returning to the clubhouse we learned that just a few days earlier a caddy had collapsed on the course and had to be taken to the hospital. A caddy! Someone who WALKS and carries golf bags for a living!!!

Following are the ACTUAL records from the Hilton Head area for October 12, 2009:

Dew Point   71 °F       
Average Humidity   89       
Maximum Humidity   94       
Minimum Humidity   74

Hyperbole? Get caught on the course in that kind of humidity on an 85 °F day and see how far you get... even a hardened Scotsman will knuckle under.

FINAL COMMENT:  I'll walk anyone within fifteen years of my age (58) under the table. Melvyn, if you want to have a walk-a-thon at the next Buda Cup just show up and I'll walk you into submission... on your own turf no less. Come over here and we'll have an EMS crew follow you around to haul your ass off to hospital when you collapse.

FINAL FINAL COMMENT:  I just remembered that there is one person in the UK that I will NOT have a walk-a-thon with... Nick Leefe of Alwoodly fame. That guy will speed walk you to death!!!

[Brent Hutto]

Yeah, Nick just strolls along nonchalantly...and after a hundred yards those of us who think of ourselves as fast walkers notice we're trailing a dozen paces behind. My kind of guy!

[A.G._Crockett]

I am all for hyperbole, but those summer days in the Southeast have humidity levels more in the 50-60% range.  It's still disgusting, granted, but the 90%+ readings are only at night - or during a storm.

Jason,
It isn't hyperbole at all.  The average relative humidity for Atlanta in August is 90% in the morning, 60% in the afternoon as the temperature rises.  That is straight off the National Weather Service website, and Atlanta is far, far from the worst in the SE.  June, July, and often parts of May and September are much the same.

By far the worst time of the day in the summer in the SE is late morning when the humidity peaks before the temperature really gets up.  At 85-90 with 90% humidity around 11 a.m., it'll just croak you.  In the afternoon when we get up above 90 degrees and the humidity drops down, it actually feels a little bit better.  I'm a runner, and I'll run at 9 a.m. or at 3 p.m. or after, but I will NOT run in the late morning in the summers.  I like breathing too much.

I teach and coach at the high school level, so my summers are free.  I walk whenever possible, and here in Georgia I go through about 9 golf gloves per round; two holes and the glove is wet and has to be replaced.  I would guess that I drink somewhere in the neighborhood of 80 oz. of water during a round, maybe more.  Lots of times when I finish the round, I am soaked from the button on the top of my cap to the tongues of my shoes; even my belt is soaked through.  I'm 6-1 and weigh 175, so it ain't like I'm carrying a lot of extra weight around.

But it does free me up to rehydrate in the afternoons and evenings with the adult beverage of my choice...

[Wayne_Kozun]

Why do people get so upset by carts?  I don't like them, but they are easy to avoid and none of us has to play cart courses.  Live and let live.

Here's my perspective - much of the time and money of Greens budgets is spent on carts.  Paving and curbing cart paths, repairing damage done by carts, figuring out how to get members to drive only where they are supposed to, etc.  Courses like to talk about how much revenue they get from carts but I wonder how cost effective they are on a fully costed out basis, including counting additional land and buildings required for cart storage, electrical bill for charging, etc.

[Jason McNamara]

Jason,
It isn't hyperbole at all.  The average relative humidity for Atlanta in August is 90% in the morning, 60% in the afternoon as the temperature rises.  That is straight off the National Weather Service website, and Atlanta is far, far from the worst in the SE.  June, July, and often parts of May and September are much the same.

By far the worst time of the day in the summer in the SE is late morning when the humidity peaks before the temperature really gets up.  At 85-90 with 90% humidity around 11 a.m., it'll just croak you.  In the afternoon when we get up above 90 degrees and the humidity drops down, it actually feels a little bit better.  I'm a runner, and I'll run at 9 a.m. or at 3 p.m. or after, but I will NOT run in the late morning in the summers.  I like breathing too much.

A.G. -

I'd welcome any data pointers you have, because looking through last year's July and August hourly readings at Hartsfield, I cannot find a single 11am reading where the temp + humidity => 175, not even on on rainy days.  In most cases it's more like 140.  Maybe I picked a non-representative year?  (I ignored this year, thinking it was cooler than normal.)

See for example http://www.wunderground.com/history/airport/KATL/2008/7/31/DailyHistory.html

Living in Louisiana and now Houston, we get the same misery, so I do understand the importance of that post-round beer.  At least we're not in Jakarta.

[Andy Troeger]

Jed

Use a cart , that is down to you but don't call it golf.

Melvyn

While I'd rather walk, I have no problem taking a cart during a round of golf. And believe me, I will call it golf.

[Jud_T]

Is Casey Martin therefore not a golfer?

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