I would also like to ask, if we didn't have carts, how many golf courses would we have at all in this country? If there were still roughly 25-30 million golfers, how fast would be rounds then with less courses? How many people would give up the game when they still have some years left to be outside and enjoy the game?
Why do you think we'd have fewer courses and that many golfers?
I have no idea how many golfers we'd have without carts, but I am tired of people insisting that cartballl money has been keeping golf courses afloat.
First, no one has ever taken a serious look at what carts cost a golf course. Add up the cost of cart paths, cart barns, fuel/electricity, maintenance of the carts, the actual cost of the carts, all the staff needed to wrangle carts and clean them up after a round, and finally the cost of repairing the turf damage they do--then tell me it's producing a big benefit to the bottom line.
Like a lot of other things at golf courses, notably the F&B operation, no one knows how much carts actually produce because they never subtract all those expenses from the gross cart fees. They are buried in the mortgage, or admin budgets, or the superintendent's budget.
Without carts, golf courses would be much less expensive to build, and less expensive to maintain. And they'd be prettier as well.
What effect would that have on participation in the sport?
K