by Mark Cobalt
Sorry guys but golf is not a sport and you are not athletes. It is a recreational activity that should be played with a group a friends in carts with beer. If you want excersice go jogging or ride a bike. If you want to play a sport take up basketball, baseball or football but quit kidding yourself. If you are walking and I am riding please get out of the way because there is no way you are faster.

by Larrrrr
When I turned 55 and needed to lose weight I started walking the course, and there is NO DOUBT it improves your game -- pacing, sense of distance, etc. Walking has gone the way of caddies -- its just not part of the modern game. Indeed, sadly, so many "modern" courses built around housing developments are almost impossible to walk because the stretch between holes can be a quarter mile or more (and that clearly slows down play, as well as adding to the exhaustion factor). And there are several courses in the DC area that won't allow walking, even when I've pleaded to do so (although I beat that rap by simply walking once I'm on the course). And is there anything more frustrating than being told you can't walk BUT then being required to play "cart-path" only golf, where the amount of walking and delay in terms of club selection is worse than if you simply had your bag with you for every shot!!!

by Greg
I wish more people had to walk, it would add a new perspective to the game. Nothing makes you shake your head more than some fat 300+ lb insurance guy driving around in his golf cart (or when 4 people have to get 4 golf carts because everyone wants to drive!!). Just yesterday I got a chance to walk 72 holes, and I want to see if next week I can make it to 100 holes. After you hit 50 on a long walk, endurance really plays a factor!

by Gretchen
As a middle aged lady golfer, I have golfed both Scotland and Ireland -- with 'the girls'. Both 10 day trips were arranged so that we played 36 one day, followed by 18, then 36 etc. Walking with our local caddies added enormously to the sheer joy of the experience. Were we tired? Yes. But the 'best tired' it could possibly be. It was Golf as it should be -- including, or possibly especially, the round at Glasgow Gales during which our caddy led us over the fence and down the road so that we could 'use the facility' at his home (no bathrooms at all on the course. Not such a problem for the guys but for us girls........)

by Jon Bayley
In the words of Dean Wurmer, “Fat, drunk & stupid is no way to go through life.”
I see so many young golfers riding carts, that I think they have just become too lazy to appreciate the joy of a “walk in the park” that a round of golf can be.
Some golfers do need assistance to get around a hilly track. Some just need a place to carry their cold beer.
I have yet to play Myrtle based on the practice of forcing players to ride a cart. It is all a money decision for these courses. I would rather pay a little more for the ability to walk while playing golf.
If the layout is set up to have a huge distance between holes, then what was the point of building the course on said piece of land?
Oh, yeah, to build those lame McMansions for people to pay more than the market rate for a place to live.
Give me a mature muni with a basic clubhouse and a place to have post-game refreshments and I am happy.

by Mike Harper
My number one gripe about playing many of the best courses is being forced to ride.It definitely leads to poor golf , slow times and less fun. Let us play the way the game was meant to be played. Save the carts for those truely unable to walk and improve the health of the average golfer while reducing the high cost in both time and dollars for the majority.

by Graham Douglas
Our foursome (ages 38-57) walk and carry. It has become a sort of macho, mocked-if-you-ride (or pull), kind of thing. You do get a better feel for the course, stay warm and loose AND lose a few lbs. along the way. At the end of the round you are nicely tired and looking forward to lunch and a frosty pint. Good shoes become paramount.

by champ
That's what our environmental protection laws, along with real estate development interests have brought us in the USA. Courses that are designed with distances from one hole to the next way too long to make walking practical. I'd much prefer to walk while playing a round of golf but with todays courses being so spread out it isn't feasible. the Scots have it right!!

by Clayton Davis
Our group of 8 golfers, average age of 50, went to Scotland in August. We walked 180 holes in 7 days. It was spectacular! The way golf was meant to be played. On the rounds where we didn't have caddies, we rented 'trolleys' ( pull carts ). They really help.

by Charlie Meeker
Lutz said it all. Additional revenue is the only reason at my private club, even to the point of trying to make carts mandatory, which failed. I've played Scotland many times, and at 63 years old, always walk, with a "trolley" here and a caddy there, which is most of the fun, and they know the courses well.
Simply put, we Americans are lazy, and sully the great game of golf with alchohol and disrespect for other players and the course.
We should take a lesson from Scotland and just enjoy the game for the great game it is, not to just see how much money we can make from it, and for the real estate people can sell. In Scotland it's for the game, where here it's a vehicle to make money. That's the American way.

by David Hogg
It is common practice in the UK to play 36 or even 54 holes in one day.....on foot! Impossible on USA modern courses.

by Lutz Braumüller
Thats very courages to publish an article in US like this. Hope for you very much, that you are still allowed to play on US courses after this article.
You are completely right saying "any head pro or GM who says carts are mandatory for pace of play are either ignorant, greedy or compensating for a poorly planned layout that has long distances between holes." To often I heard these arguments myself.
But one reason is missing in your article - the real reason:
It is nothing else but to get the possibility to get a higher greenfee.
Therefore they say it is mandatory. Otherwise you would have a choice.
Yes most of european golfclubs have got 2 or 3 carts, but only for injured people and they are only allowed to ride when they can show a medical certificate.
Of course you must not carry your bag. Everyone here got a handtrolley or can hire a handtrolley.
I am playing since over 30 years in order of merit tournaments, championships, teams and normal friendship rounds.
If you want a bit more than just strolling around a golfcourse and want to play golf a little bit in a sportive way, then walk. It is not possible if you are riding.

by Barry Ward
"The great Peter Thomson of Australia said that 'the rhythm of the
walk is the rhythm of the swing.'
In other words, walking aids your
tempo. He won the Open five times so he knew what he was talking about.
He had a brisk metronomic walk that was reflected in his wonderfully
simple swing. It was a joy to watch.
I've seldom played a good round from a cart so I agree with him. Plus
the fact that here in Britain most club courses are laid out on
relatively small sites (150 acres is about average for the long
established courses, many hand-built more than a century ago, before
earth moving became possible).
Thus, there's seldom more than a few
yards between the green and the next tee, a factor not unconnected with
the original Rules of Golf.....
Few clubs have space for cart parking facilities or cart tracks and walking is second nature to we UK golfers.
(In winter at my club we play foursomes with a light carry bag and half set of clubs and get around 18 holes in well under three hours: yes, that's on foot....)
It's a totally different story in the U.S., where 150 acres would
barely accommodate the car park at many clubs/resorts! The fact is that most modern US courses are designed to be played on wheels: this is partly because the much larger sites available allow architects to select the best possible routing and green and tee placements.
Then, too, carts are huge sources
of revenue over there, particularly at resort courses (the Pinehurst
cart shed looks like the hangar of an aircraft carrier. It's an awesome
sight at the end of the day when all the carts are having their
batteries re-charged. I think they have 900 of them, and that's only
for the original six courses!)
From personal experience I know that playing by cart is no quicker than
on foot: I've kept pace with friends playing out of carts. And a slow
round is a slow round however you're travelling.
Their one advantage, particularly to those on vacation in Florida or the Carolinas or other summer hot spots, is that the movement of the cart provides natural air conditioning and shade in the heat.
This allows British golf nuts to
play 36 holes a day, 54 at a push providing there's a beverage cart in
close and regular attendance! Bliss! These days too, of course, carts
allow such necessities as in-built ice boxes and GP range finders....
Some U.S. courses allow walking after a specific time of day, and there
is a Walking Golf Society. I gather most of the members are quite slim.
. . ."
Barry Ward
Publisher/Editor
www.posh-golf-travel.com

by john wade
Proper golfers always walk in the U.K.
But , in Arizona and Florida, it is often too hot , and we have found riding to be a pleasure . Also , the distance from green to tee can be very lomg.

by Jeremy James
A pretty course was laid out in virgin scrub at St Andreal in the south of France. Tracks have been laid between many greens and tees which sometimes are hundreds of yards apart. Why? To make people hire carts, said the manager!
Walking between green and tee is an annoyance and it is the fault of architects. On old courses you used to drive from the edge of the green and could easily do 36 or even 54 holes in a day. Golf is about hitting a ball, not hiking.