A LETTER TO ME FROM MELVYN
Hi Mike
Just read your post on GCA.com ‘The Golf Car….’ Well you do not expect me to pass on that issue, but please read on as I have tried to be constructive in dismantling the premiss that the cart is the savour of the modern game, a passport to new areas environments, it’s not as many a Scotsman will tell you of the sites overseas that their great, great, great great grandfathers played even before England started to get the bug to try golf.
The following is my reply
The humble cart is not the issue, yes it creates hard wear and tear upon the course more so the heaver it is and the wilder it is driven. However, as I have said so many times before it has a place for those suffering from age and ill health.
The introduction of the cart has had no real implication as to where the game is played, history proves that beyond doubt. Golf was played in so many environments, prior to the invention of the internal combustion engine or for that matter the electric motor, places like India, Africa South, America, North America, Asia and Australia. On coastal, inland, high and desert courses where Greens were just sands and Tees compacted termite mounds with in places high humidity, baking sun in others through to jungle and grass land, all offering up a simple but very serious physical challenge not experienced by many who have played The Old Course at St Andrews.
My objection to the cart is based upon the actual player being unwilling to commit to the game of golf – that he/she refuses to play the game of golf like all those before them. In truth questioning the fact, are they really good enough to actually rise to the challenge of what golf is a ‘Walking & Thinking Game’. Clearly they are not or more appropriately just totally unwilling to enter into the game, the spirit of the game preferring not to commit to many aspects of the game of golf, yet still insist that they are playing Golf.
No I am afraid the cart has contributed very little to the game of golf – it was not responsible for different locations or the playability of those areas, what it has done is attract the less committed and allowed them to boast to the world that they are playing golf yet refuse to rise to the challenge of playing golf. Those without age or medical conditions are a disgrace and tarnish the good name of golfer and courses alike – they show no backbone to engage with the game of golf, force walkers to ride or seek to feel even better by having no walking courses. These are quite simply lazy and inconsiderate people who make questionable claims regards being golfers and brings into question just how accurate are their scores compared to genuine walking golfers who suffer the fatigue of the course and the weather.
As for revenue, is that really a justifiable excuse to be lazy and the refusal to commit to the game let alone the course? Would golf have ‘boomed’ as it did – well again let’ talk facts not opinions, by first noting the date of the worldwide spread of golf from the last decade of the 19th and into the first couple in the 20th Century compared to the time carts first surfaced in the mid 1930 being withdrawn due to lack of interest in riding then reintroduced in more volume in the 1950s. I fear the facts show the lack of commitment by many in the new world after WW2.
The humble cart has not given golf a new dawn, but it has most certainly deflected the game and worst still GCA into wasteful scenarios of catering for the cart when both time and money would be more affective if concentrated on the course for real committed golfers.
I might be seen as the same old story but it’s not, many in the past having they said they got it never did and the real cost has been seen in the quality of golf courses since the end of WW2.
Golf’s Govern Bodies have allowed a virus to infect not just the game but worst still how many think of the game and it does not just rest with the humble cart but delves deeper into uncontrolled technology and aids that apparently seem to not just assist players but actually help them in preference of the development skill.
Why do Walkers have to abandon Walking and ride, why will their friends not abandon the cart and walk – why is it always a one way track, perhaps again we are seeing the lack of commitment not just to the game but their friend coming to the surface.
However until you face the facts, the game continues to grow weaker – a good enough reason I believe to be repetitive on just how serious these issues are for the survival of the game we still (to a point) know as the Game of Golf.
I shall leave it to you if you want to post the above comment onto GCA.com as a response to your topic or just ignore it as yet another rant from someone who cares about the game and how it is played in the hope of retaining some semblance of the game for the 22nd Century Players – golfers may by then not be the right description.
Warm regards
Melvyn