IS WALKING REALLY ENCOURAGED?

[Jerry Kluger]

A number of courses I know of are now allowing you to walk but are charging the same fee to play if you take a riding cart or walk.  This same policy applies if you are taking a walking caddy versus a cart and a forecaddy.  It seems to me that they should give you something for your money and perhaps should offer you one of the new three wheel hand trolleys if you are walking which takes the strain off your back so you could perhaps play more than 18 holes.  Very often if you look at your receipt the fixed fee is broken down into a greens fee and a separate cart fee for their bookkeeping so they at least view it as having a value.  Greens fees are quite substantial at some of these courses and this policy seems to conflict with a policy which is trying to encourage you to walk.  

[Guest]

Encouragement to walk ends where it affects the bottom line

[Tim Weiman]

Jerry:

I am not aware of many places that truly encourage walking. Among modern public access courses, Pacific Dunes and Whistling Straits come to mind.

Shortly after Poppy Hills opened the only way my group could walk was by offering to pay a cart fee and the fee for joining the Northern California Golf Association. Just what guys from Cleveland needed!

[Dave_Miller]

Unfortunately the revenue fro carts is a big number at a lot of places and to encourage walking is in direct conflict with this.

Even at Private Clubs walking is becoming less and less.

Caddie Programs are becoming fewer and fewer.

Fortunately my clubs still have caddies. Except in Florida where they are non-existent at my place.

Best
Dave

[THuckaby2]

Shortly after Poppy Hills opened the only way my group could walk was by offering to pay a cart fee and the fee for joining the Northern California Golf Association. Just what guys from Cleveland needed!

Tim - as an NCGA committeeman, I find that shameful and it really is an embarassment how unfriendly to walkers our two courses (Poppy Hills and Poppy Ridge) are.  I've voiced this to NCGA management and all I get is agreement that walking is to be encouraged but an attitude that "we're giving the people what they want."  It is sad indeed.

TH

[Steve Lapper]

Good luck! The rationale(or lack of such) of most high-end daily fee courses is that once there, you are a captive customer.
These places use very rigid numerical formulas designed to extract maximum cash flow from the number of expected rounds. The so called "Encouragement of Walking" is illusory at most of these places as management believes it will slow play considerably and incrementally reduce revenue. Cash flow to the management is the holy grail and investors are led to believe that max efficiency is 100% the goal. Only specific cost accounting could possibly be the excuse for breaking out the cart fee.

Interestingly, in the US the trolley is quite common at the lower-mid $$ daily fee course and thus snobbishly measured as unbecoming at the higher-end places. I've had exactly that reason given to me from several course managers in different locales. Of course in Europe it is the opposite.

The "walking" policy is rarely really encouraged. Instead it primarily offered to convince the up-scale daily fee player that they are having a private club experience.

[Jerry Kluger]

Perhaps I should have called this "Is walking really permitted?"  The point is perhaps the courses can benefit by supplying electric walking carts or the new three wheeled push carts if the golfer is not using a riding cart.  When we are being charged $100 or more to play a public course and we enjoy walking this does not mean that we have to feel that we are being taken advantage of.  It is not possible to take one of those walking carts on an airplane so when you are away from home you can carry your bag or ride, and I like to play more than 18 a day on a golf trip but that is usually not in the cards once I've carried my bag for 18.  

[Jim_Kennedy]

JerryK,
If the management said "The price today is $50.00 walking or riding" and you are a confirmed walker then the cart has no value for you, just the course. The real question is whether or not the course is worth $50.00. If it isn't then you may as well have taken the cart. If it is then you will walk away happy.  
Does a policy like this encourage walking? It may not appear to but at least they are not forcing you into the cart.

p.s. If I ran that course I'd give you the pull cart for the round if you chose to walk.  

[Ben_Hogan_NJ]

I think it also might have to do a bit with pace of play.  Better golfers (especially ones that tend to walk more often), can a round of golf in about the same time walking or riding.  I think it does get down to economics and them trying to maintain 10 minute gaps between tee times and keep the rounds under 5 hours.  

[Kevin_Reilly]

Tim - as an NCGA committeeman, I find that shameful and it really is an embarassment how unfriendly to walkers our two courses (Poppy Hills and Poppy Ridge) are.  I've voiced this to NCGA management and all I get is agreement that walking is to be encouraged but an attitude that "we're giving the people what they want."  It is sad indeed.

TH

Tom, might be a medical liability encouraging walking at Poppy Ridge    

[THuckaby2]

Same could be said for Poppy Hills, really - that's no easy walk either.  But of course Poppy Ridge does take the cake.

TH

[Launch_Director]

It has nothing to do with pace of play, unless both golfers in a cart are low handicapers. Otherwise, after the tee shot, the cart goes to the left rough to drop off one guy and the driver then heads to the right rough, but wait, the golfer in the left rough needs a different club. And instead of driving back to his ball, he waits for the golfer in the left rough to hit. And since he has just hit, why not wait for him to put his club back in his bag on the cart and they both drive to the right rough.

Don't look too deep' it's always about the money.

[JakaB]

Jerry,

I don't understand your problem...walking is a better and more fun way to play the game so why should it be cheaper...can you imagine how much higher green fees would be if carts didn't exist.   While carts may be the camels of fools they bring gifts to the wise...so just pay your money and grin as you spit on the seat of the nearest four wheeled cutter and smuck mobile as you walk towards the first tee.

[stat_man]

Walking sure isn't encouraged in NJ...I actually don't mind paying for the cart and "declining" it to walk, but now a bunch of courses locally won't even let you do that.

[Scott_Burroughs]

Here's an example of today's lazy golfer.  While looking up info on Rick Jacobsen's Augustine GC, a CCFAD in Virginia, on golfcourse.com today, I looked at the reader ratings.  One guy complained about the service: "They also did not have enough golf carts so we had to wait, and we had to carry our golf bags to the driving range."  

OMIGOD!  You had to carry your bag to the range!?!  Call the police!!  

I've been there.  It's an entire 50 yards away.

While carts are certainly the bane of modern golf, I've never understood how "they" say that carts are so much faster than walking?  The USGA or some organization "proved" that flawed theory wrong by showing that under "typical" cicumstances, a 4-some walking vs. riding was just a few (around 5) minutes slower over an 18 hole round, on average.

Why and how is this possible?  Think about it, on a typical course with a fairly full tee sheet, a group in carts obviously will get to their drives before walkers would, but then they just sit and wait for the group ahead to finish/get out of the way.  While walkers take longer to get to their balls, the group ahead has a chance to play and get out of range.  That is the beauty and flow of walking golf.  Cartball is just "hurry-up-and-wait" golf on every shot, making it seem even longer than it is.  I guess that just gives more time to drink your beer, smoke your stogies, and talk on your cell phones.  

Here's what happened a few weeks ago at my club.  I was playing my usual afternoon weekend round, approaching my tee shot on the 1st hole, my 2nd nine, when a 2-some comes wheeling over in a cart asking to play through by dropping balls just ahead of me because they're in a hurry so they can 'get home to the nagging wives'.  I told them if they just went back to the tee and played from there, they won't even see me after that hole.  One said, "with you walking?"  I told them I'll be done with this nine in an hour, provided I don't run into anyone.  They conceded, not quite convinced, and went back to the tee.  They didn't see me again after I walked off the 2nd green as they pulled up to the 2nd tee....

[JohnV]

Pumpkin Ridge provides free pull-carts (trolleys) for anyone playing there.  The original reason for this was that they didn't want players to use their own pull carts for fear that they would bring foreign grasses (poa) to the course.  They do charge extra to ride and you have to keep the power carts on the paths so it is crazy for anyone to use them.  But, many people still do.

The Futures Tour, where I used to work didn't allow trolleys, but sent a cart out with every group for the players who didn't have caddies to put their clubs on.  The players had to walk, but their clubs could ride.  This led to numerous bad situations and slower play as some volunteer drove around to each player to let them get a club.  I wondered about the trolley ban and eventually came to the conclusion that it is an east-coast thing.  It seems to me that trolleys are associated with munis and other low-end public courses on the east coast, so no self-respecting person would want them on their course.

[Jerry Kluger]

Perhaps I should have called this "Is walking really permitted?"  The point is perhaps the courses can benefit by supplying electric walking carts or the new three wheeled push carts if the golfer is not using a riding cart.  When we are being charged $100 or more to play a public course and we enjoy walking this does not mean that we have to feel that we are being taken advantage of.  It is not possible to take one of those walking carts on an airplane so when you are away from home you can carry your bag or ride, and I like to play more than 18 a day on a golf trip but that is usually not in the cards once I've carried my bag for 18.  

[Launch_Director]

A few years ago I was at Rancho San Marcos (near Santa Barbara) and while they allowed walking, they would not allow a hand trolley. Someone who worked there (he's no longer there) confided that they felt it sullied the reputation they hoped to build. e.g., the forecaddies at the time were required to wear Augusta style overalls (and it can get toastyyp up that mountain pass in the summer).

Just another example of a typical upscale daily fee course that "doesn't get it" (a la Lost Canyons) while Rustic Canyon does.

[Jerry Kluger]

I would just like to see the golfer being given more options than riding in a cart and blasting around the course.  There are many courses today which are not walkable simply because the distance between greens and tees is too great because they are part of a housing development but that should be the exception.  If you are told when you check in that the course believes in the traditions of the game and allows walking by either carrying your clubs or giving you one of their new style hand trolleys or an electric walking cart to use as well as the option to ride, I think you present the situation in a very positive light.  If you have caddies and reduce the fee by say $25 if you take a caddy then you have also made a very favorable impression on the individual who is likely to return if he or she really enjoys the course.  First impressions are very important and is the guy who complains when he has to carry his clubs to the driving range really the one who is most likely to return and tell others how much he enjoyed the course.  I recently went to play a course they told me it was $160 to play plus $65 for a caddy or $40 for a cart plus $25 for a forecaddy, which I hoped they viewed as a way to encourage you to use the carrying caddy, although I did not ask; strangely enough, there were far more people riding than walking.  Has anyone else noticed the great increase in the use of the three wheel hand trolleys and their potential?

[MBL]

Walking sure isn't encouraged in NJ...I actually don't mind paying for the cart and "declining" it to walk, but now a bunch of courses locally won't even let you do that.

Stat-Man:

Are you referencing daily-fee courses in NJ?  Although I no longer live in The Garden State, I did for four years in the mid-90s (and my parents do currently).  My father's course, Canoe Brook CC, requires walking - caddy or tote your own bag - unless you (essentially) have a note from your doctor or at least a VERY good excuse to take a cart.  And Baltusrol has an equally strong (if not stronger) commitment to its caddy program (i.e. walking).  I also used to play the county courses a lot which had NO problem with walking.  Then again this was pre-1998, so I could be wrong.

On the trolley issue, I just don't get it.  Why wouldn't clubs/courses encourage them?  I've seen a few at a club that I play regularly here in town (it's a "new" club with a great course designed by Keith Foster), but they are the ONLY place that I see the trolleys.  Granted economics ALWAYS play a role, but if the club's "thought leaders" got behind the concept, wouldn't/couldn't public opinion vis-a-vis 'appearances' be changed?

[Mike_Sweeney]

Can any of the Rustic Canyon "members" share the cart/walking/trolley policies? It sounds like they did a good job marketing the "Rustic" to their players.

FYI, I just came back from a trip to Ireland, where I played with a number of local members at Enniscrone. I asked the question of who uses the carts that were parked near the clubhouse, which I assumed would be the Americans on tour buses. I was shocked to hear that some of the younger Irish players are starting to use them. This information came from "Ollie" who is a local member, kicked my butt and was probably 70 years old and pushes his trolley 36 holes every weekend !

[Steve Sailer]

One realistic compromise that could get more people to walk at expensive CCFAD courses is to offer a four bag caddy cart. This would be a modified motorized cart driven by a caddy (or chauffeur or chauffeur-caddy or whatever he should be called). The cart would carry all four bags. The players would walk but the caddy would deliver their clubs to them and help them look for their lost balls. There would be room for at least one player to ride along with the caddy, and, during long drives from greens to tees or on uphill holes, for all four to stand on running boards .

My guess is that all a foursome with no one ahead of them would get around 15-30 minutes faster using a caddy cart than if they walked or took two motorized carts they drove themselves. The cost would be somewhat greater, but less than hiring two double-bagging caddies.

The strain on the chauffeur-caddy would be quite low if carts were allowed off cart paths, especially compared to double-bagging (so, you might be able to pay him a little less, since the job wouldn't be as physically demanding). If carts must stay on cart paths, the chauffeur-caddy would have to hustle to hand-deliver the clubs.

Steve Sailer

[A_Clay_Man]

This topic really urks me.

Charging for services not rendered should be unconstitutional.

Who remembers when there were only "green fees"?

The asshole who invented the 18 hole fee is sitting on a beach sipping mai tai's earning 20%.

Vote with your wallet and don't be afraid to use your feet to leave the property.

[Jerry Kluger]

    At one time I belonged to a profit oriented course where they did have golf carts which could handle four bags.  There was an attachment that extended off the back of the cart and allowed it to handle four bags.  This meant that only one player had to drive the cart and believe me there usually was only one person who wanted to drive.  The cost for the cart was less per player but still more than a cart for two so everyone was happy.
     My concern in this area is not with the private clubs rather the resort courses and the upscale public courses which are profit driven.  There needs to be some type of compromise where the player is encouraged in all respects to take his choice; walk or ride.  

[Bill_McBride]

Played at Rustic Canyon a couple of weeks ago (loved it) and was able to rent a large wheeled three wheel push cart from the course.  $5 for the round.  They do get it.
I'm seeing more and more three wheelers at private clubs. We must have 30 at Pensacola CC, the only problem is room for storage in the bag room.  At Valley Club and LaCumbre in Santa Barbara last week it looked like half the players had three wheel carts.  This is definitely a good sign that pull/push carts are no longer stigmatizing for the clubs.  I personally favor having a public access course charge the same fee for walking or using an electric cart.  Then there's no hypocrisy about charging additional for a mandatory cart. If you want to walk you walk.  The club actually increases net revenue because there's no operating cost for an unusued cart round!