A course can support some sort of caddie program while not precluding the ability of members to carry their own bag. Is the "value proposition" in having a caddie so weak that members must be forced to have a caddie?
No Corey, the level of "mandator-i-ness" of any club's caddie policies develop out of the habits/demographics of the club and its players...if only a handful like to walk, and don't mind carrying their own, then mandatory policies are likely not to be found...but once you start approaching 1/3rd or half of a membership (or more) that like to walk, then you're going to also increase the number of that club that don't like to carry their own...now you NEED some caddies, but are caddies going to show at a place with irregular caddie usage? The answer to that question is no, whether we're talking about the youngster or grizzled vet.
A tangential factor to the above is that in these parts, there are plenty of club members who prefer/are compelled to ride (will walk on occasion) who like what the caddie provides even when not walking...the raking, the yardages, the divots, the advice, the reads, a towel at hand, sight of an errant shot, consoling misses, celebrating good plays... human service and human interaction. So that's nearly-whole other group of players in any club, who endorse caddies being mandatory, so that they are available to them when they deign to play...
A third bit of context you might miss is that only for a concentration of Top 100 mandatory caddie clubs is the caddie mandatory 24/7... many places curtail the rule as the afternoon goes on, whereby couples, fathers-son, family groups and juniors and singles can get by without taking one after 4 or 5 pm...
The final statement I have to that is that 85% of the people I have been working for are LOADED; many are kind; almost all of them have cash in their pocket equal to your last good month, very few of them even know or care what they are paying me. If they give me extra and I see em the next day and say "Thanks for yesterday, I appreciate it," they don';t even know what I'm talking about.
Whether it's talking about THIS nuance or Ran's idea of a place that stewards the game the way he likes it stewarded, the big divide about all of this for all of us is whether the club is private or public... at a private club, no one ought have a beef...either you're a member who came in eyes-open, or you're visiting...visitors don't re-arrange your cabinets. At a public you have the choice not to play.
Caddy and caddy programmes in the US are often mentioned herein.
What percentage of courses in the US, whether private or public or pay-n-play or muni or whatever have a caddy programme or caddies available?
Just curious.
Arb
and that's another nuanced point...NOT MANY as per total course-choices....BUT almost ALL of an objectively fused Top 200 list...and the best privates in big city suburbs.
It gets a lot of play here because we mostly reference the courses just mentioned.