Walking Only Courses in USA - How much does it help or hurt revenue?

[Matthew Petersen]

I almost never walk.


Not because I dislike it, but because I live in Georgia and a lot of my rounds are in conditions that would make walking very difficult. That's exacerbated by the fact that a lot of the courses I play were not designed with walking in mind, and would be almost a death march to walk in the summer. Some of the courses don't even allow walking. Additionally, the people I play with here generally aren't interested in walking, so walking by myself would eliminate some of the social aspect.


I do sometimes walk in the spring and fall at my father's club when I visit my parents, but that's one of the only times it's even a real option.

This is the biggest issue for me as well. I am in Arizona.


There's a significant portion of the year where walking isn't realistic given the weather. Perhaps as a result of that knowledge, or maybe just because the vast majority of the courses here were built in modern times when cartball predominated and most of those for real estate purposes, most aren't really walkable anyway.


What's unfortunate is that even very walkable courses, on walkable days in the fall and winter, often require carts. The Biltmore's compact classic Adobe course would be a great walk, but only members are allowed to eschew carts. Since Talking Stick was taken over by the Palmer management company a few years ago, they now require carts for all (previously, when managed by Troon, you could walk, though you got some funny looks from the cart guys outside).


Basically, if you want to walk, you have to either find a private club with a walking friendly course and good walking culture (Desert Forest, Phoenix Country Club) or play a muni (most people take carts there too but you won't get a funny look if you choose to walk and the courses are totally walkable).

[Kalen Braley]

Weather plays a big role here in Utah as well 3-4 months in the summer.  When its 85 degrees by 9 AM in the morning, and near 100 in the afternoon, walking 18 holes over 4-4.5 hours is a difficult task for all except the fittest.  Combined with the dry heat, you have to carry such a large amount of fluid because you're dehydrating much quicker than you think.


Then throw in all the mountain courses which are hard to walk in any weather...and carts are basically necessary to get any amount of volume to keep the course a going concern.

[Matthew Petersen]

This is all logical from a course's perspective. Imagine a walkable course in the American south or southwest, one of these places where the summer months are generally hot enough that most people will not walk but the weather is nice enough the rest of the year that walking is feasible. The course can't go all in on walking because they know they will need carts in the summer.


I get that it makes little sense to then encourage walking the rest of the year while the carts just sit there when, in theory, you could be making money from renting them out. Except that: I rarely play courses anymore where the cost of a cart isn't already included in the green fee, especially in this part of the world. (Again this is a natural byproduct of living in a place where cartball is the norm.) So it's not totally clear that those courses are making any money from renting carts per se, as I wouldn't necessarily expect to pay less to walk the course than I am to play it with a cart right now.


That's why I don't totally get why so many courses that are walkable won't allow it. It's not even cutting into their bottom line! Is it a misguided notion that walking is slower?


Streamsong is an interesting counterpoint to all this since it is a southern course that does push walking culture but then has a cart fleet for the hot summers. But it's also a destination resort that breaks rules of your average golf course. An outlier, literally.

[Kalen Braley]

Agreed Matt,


In Northern Utah, its a double whammy because most are closed for 3-4 months in the winter, so they need to get every last bit of revenue they can.

A Calendar year often looks like this:

Jan - Halfway March - Closed due to snow.
Mid March thru May - Walking feasible weather
June thru Mid-Sept - Hot as hell, most rounds are cart.
Mid Sept thru November - Walking Weather again.
December - Closed again.

[Edward Glidewell]

That's why I don't totally get why so many courses that are walkable won't allow it. It's not even cutting into their bottom line! Is it a misguided notion that walking is slower?

I think this is mainly it -- both from the management of the course and from other players. I've seen people at a public course get really upset when they are in a cart and are behind people who are walking. They are probably afraid it will drive away potential players.

[Jim Nugent]

Suppose Pebble only allowed walking.  How would that impact a) Revenue b) Bottom line? 

[A.G._Crockett]

That's why I don't totally get why so many courses that are walkable won't allow it. It's not even cutting into their bottom line! Is it a misguided notion that walking is slower?

I think this is mainly it -- both from the management of the course and from other players. I've seen people at a public course get really upset when they are in a cart and are behind people who are walking. They are probably afraid it will drive away potential players.

I think this question is a pet peeve for all of us who like to walk; the presumption that walking is slower than riding really rubs us the wrong way. 

And there's no doubt that on an uncrowded golf course, unless it's cart path only, a single rider can go faster than a single walker; in that regard, it's no different than anywhere else.  Riding my bike is faster than walking, but driving my car is faster than riding my bike, but flying is faster than driving.  And I can't walk as fast as a golf cart goes...

The irony of the conflict, though, is that when the course is crowded, say on a weekend morning, is when the course is most likely to REQUIRE you to ride, AND when it makes the least difference; if the round is slow and there's nowhere to go in terms of playing thru, it doesn't matter what your means of locomotion to your golf ball is.  And that's when walkers get upset at being told that they are slower by the management.
At a former club of mine in Georgia (Crystal Falls) one of the most admirable things about the management was that they were just completely honest about all of this.  During Daylight Savings Time, you paid half a cart fee as a "trail fee" on weekend mornings, and the club said flat out that it was a revenue issue and NOT a pace of play issue; lots of players who walked most of their rounds would go ahead and pay the difference and ride.  During standard time, when the weather was much more likely to be iffy, no trail fee was charged; the club was happy to have you out there in the cold and wind and so forth.  It was a thoughtful, insightful policy, and all of us who religiously walked our rounds really appreciated it.

[V. Kmetz]

Oy, 'vat a geshrie!


Jesus, fellas isn't the bottom line that NOBODY LIKES BEING TOLD WHAT TO DO?? Either way?


Does it really require an accounting examination to know that the VAST preponderance of available public golf courses which navigate season to season on tight fiscal margins and want to embrace the maximum scope of players and filled times, find a profit center in carts...? While we'll leave it for someone else to run the empirical numbers, I can short cut the math for you and state with confidence that the number of golfers:

• who require a cart for age reasons
• who require a cart for health reasons
• who play on courses that are a sincere effort to walk
• who play on courses that are located in extreme climates
• who have gotten their exercise elsewhere and prefer to ride at this activity
• who want to play fast on an empty course
• who want a place to sit on a crowded, slow-playing course
• who want a place to stow their comfort items because they are recreating
• who suspect that many sacred figures of yore would put their ass in a cart if they damn well pleased if they lived today...

FAR, FAR outnumber those golfers for whom walking is a sacred adjunct of the game; who use the epithet "Cartball;" and who maintain a constantly militant attitude that this, without straining, has something to do with GCA.


As an olive branch, I DO empathize with anybody (walkers/riders) being told they can't do something they want to, and sometimes being made to pay for not doing it. That is the worst result for any individual... but such persons are in the minority of numbers and the golf course is business is not rising or falling on their play at Bandon, Pebble, Streamsong...or anywhere they are finding a un-satisfactory condition.


cheers  vk

[Edward Glidewell]

• who suspect that many sacred figures of yore would put their ass in a cart if they damn well pleased if they lived today...

This is something I've long thought; that a lot of the early figures of golf would have taken carts from time to time if they existed. I'm not saying they all would, but I do think that part of the mystique and culture of golf as a walking game stems from the fact that walking was really the only way to play for a long period of time.

[Mike Sweeney]

• who suspect that many sacred figures of yore would put their ass in a cart if they damn well pleased if they lived today...

This is something I've long thought; that a lot of the early figures of golf would have taken carts from time to time if they existed. I'm not saying they all would, but I do think that part of the mystique and culture of golf as a walking game stems from the fact that walking was really the only way to play for a long period of time.

I am guessing that you neither of you have played in Maine??


Yes, I play with the "Maine Guide" for the majority of my rounds in Maine, but I played in June with a bunch of overweight, hung-over, and waiting for the bar to open "golfers", and they all walked at 53+ years of age.


There is a culture that was set 25+ years ago, and they walk every hole and putt every putt. It is a slow day for sure when the "Green Plaid" is on a course with a 125+ slope.

[James Reader]

That's why I don't totally get why so many courses that are walkable won't allow it. It's not even cutting into their bottom line! Is it a misguided notion that walking is slower?

I think this is mainly it -- both from the management of the course and from other players. I've seen people at a public course get really upset when they are in a cart and are behind people who are walking. They are probably afraid it will drive away potential players.

I think this question is a pet peeve for all of us who like to walk; the presumption that walking is slower than riding really rubs us the wrong way. 

And there's no doubt that on an uncrowded golf course, unless it's cart path only, a single rider can go faster than a single walker; in that regard, it's no different than anywhere else.  Riding my bike is faster than walking, but driving my car is faster than riding my bike, but flying is faster than driving.  And I can't walk as fast as a golf cart goes...

The irony of the conflict, though, is that when the course is crowded, say on a weekend morning, is when the course is most likely to REQUIRE you to ride, AND when it makes the least difference; if the round is slow and there's nowhere to go in terms of playing thru, it doesn't matter what your means of locomotion to your golf ball is.  And that's when walkers get upset at being told that they are slower by the management.
At a former club of mine in Georgia (Crystal Falls) one of the most admirable things about the management was that they were just completely honest about all of this.  During Daylight Savings Time, you paid half a cart fee as a "trail fee" on weekend mornings, and the club said flat out that it was a revenue issue and NOT a pace of play issue; lots of players who walked most of their rounds would go ahead and pay the difference and ride.  During standard time, when the weather was much more likely to be iffy, no trail fee was charged; the club was happy to have you out there in the cold and wind and so forth.  It was a thoughtful, insightful policy, and all of us who religiously walked our rounds really appreciated it.

Unfortunately, I’ve only ever played one round of golf in the States - about 20 years ago at a course called, I think, Stone Mountain near Atlanta on the day after a business conference (a recommendation from the hotel I was staying in).  I turned up at about 8.00 on what I thought was a beautiful morning; not a cloud in the sky, if a little bit chilly (not enough for me to actually put a jumper on though).  The place was completely empty and the guys in the pro shop were amazed I wanted to play at all because it was so cold.  Undaunted (!) I paid my fee and wandered off to the first tee only for someone to come running after me telling me that I had to use a cart.  I said I’d much rather walk but was given no option - the course insisted on carts to avoid slow play.


It was probably the longest round of golf I’ve had on my own in my life.  There were cart paths down one side of each hole, which you had to stay on, and, of course, I seemed to drive down the other side of the fairway or in the rough on just about every hole.  I swear I ended up walking almost as far as if I’d left the cart behind!  No matter how many clubs I took with me, I also regularly found myself without the one I wanted.  All in all, a really frustrating experience.


(This is not the reason I’ve not played again in the States since by the way!)

[Edward Glidewell]

Your experience at Stone Mountain could have been worse! I live in Atlanta and have only played Stone Mountain once (they have two courses). It was absolutely packed and took over 6 hours to play. One of the most miserable rounds of golf of my life.


If this was 20+ years ago, though, it probably was one of the better public options around the city. I also can't believe they wouldn't let you walk if the carts were required to stay on the path. That's insane.

[Daryl David]

That's why I don't totally get why so many courses that are walkable won't allow it. It's not even cutting into their bottom line! Is it a misguided notion that walking is slower?

I think this is mainly it -- both from the management of the course and from other players. I've seen people at a public course get really upset when they are in a cart and are behind people who are walking. They are probably afraid it will drive away potential players.

I think this question is a pet peeve for all of us who like to walk; the presumption that walking is slower than riding really rubs us the wrong way. 

And there's no doubt that on an uncrowded golf course, unless it's cart path only, a single rider can go faster than a single walker; in that regard, it's no different than anywhere else.  Riding my bike is faster than walking, but driving my car is faster than riding my bike, but flying is faster than driving.  And I can't walk as fast as a golf cart goes...

The irony of the conflict, though, is that when the course is crowded, say on a weekend morning, is when the course is most likely to REQUIRE you to ride, AND when it makes the least difference; if the round is slow and there's nowhere to go in terms of playing thru, it doesn't matter what your means of locomotion to your golf ball is.  And that's when walkers get upset at being told that they are slower by the management.
At a former club of mine in Georgia (Crystal Falls) one of the most admirable things about the management was that they were just completely honest about all of this.  During Daylight Savings Time, you paid half a cart fee as a "trail fee" on weekend mornings, and the club said flat out that it was a revenue issue and NOT a pace of play issue; lots of players who walked most of their rounds would go ahead and pay the difference and ride.  During standard time, when the weather was much more likely to be iffy, no trail fee was charged; the club was happy to have you out there in the cold and wind and so forth.  It was a thoughtful, insightful policy, and all of us who religiously walked our rounds really appreciated it





(This is not the reason I’ve not played again in the States since by the way!)

Reminds me of a guy I know that won’t ever play in Ireland again. His one and only round was at the K Club. Says he doesn’t see what the fuss is about Irish golf. Small sample sizes always lead to false conclusions.

[Phil Carlucci]

Unfortunately, I’ve only ever played one round of golf in the States - about 20 years ago at a course called, I think, Stone Mountain near Atlanta on the day after a business conference (a recommendation from the hotel I was staying in).  I turned up at about 8.00 on what I thought was a beautiful morning; not a cloud in the sky, if a little bit chilly (not enough for me to actually put a jumper on though).  The place was completely empty and the guys in the pro shop were amazed I wanted to play at all because it was so cold.  Undaunted (!) I paid my fee and wandered off to the first tee only for someone to come running after me telling me that I had to use a cart.  I said I’d much rather walk but was given no option - the course insisted on carts to avoid slow play.


It was probably the longest round of golf I’ve had on my own in my life.  There were cart paths down one side of each hole, which you had to stay on, and, of course, I seemed to drive down the other side of the fairway or in the rough on just about every hole.  I swear I ended up walking almost as far as if I’d left the cart behind!  No matter how many clubs I took with me, I also regularly found myself without the one I wanted.  All in all, a really frustrating experience.


(This is not the reason I’ve not played again in the States since by the way!)

Three of the most terrifying words for anyone who's ever looked forward to a brisk, enjoyable round of golf:
Cart Path Only

[Jeff Shelman]

I walk about 90 percent of the time when I play. I enjoy walking, I like the exercise, I don't rush as much and I believe I play better when walking.

That said, I don't love destination places that are walking only. They aren't quite as offensive to me as places that make you ride, but they aren't far behind.

I don't have a problem with places like Bethpage Black and Chambers being walking only (or a private club with local members) as you're likely only going to play 18 holes and then leave.

But I don't like the destination places that don't allow carts at all. Obviously if the business model allows for it to work, but I prefer places that encourage walking, but don't limit you. Walking 36 holes (or more) on consecutive days isn't easy. I can do it, but I feel it after. And I would rather play a regulation course in a cart than pay $75 to play a par 3 course.

For example, I had two days at Streamsong in May. We walked the Black on Saturday and then walked the Red on Sunday morning. Sunday afternoon, we took a cart on the Blue in part because we were going to be racing some storms. It worked out great. I've been to Kingsley a couple of times and have walked 18 or 27 holes before grabbing a cart for the rest of the time (and cross country golf in the evening with some beverages and tunes is pretty damn fun).

Will I visit walking only places in the future? Certainly. Maybe even this fall. Does it limit the audience? Yes.

My rankings go like this:1. Courses that encourage walking (or are even walking-only before a certain time of the day)2. Courses that don't care if you walk or ride3. Courses that are walking only4. Courses that are cart mandatory