The CGA’s Fall Fitness Finish, which kicks off its third year this month, celebrates and revels in all those healthy steps we get from walking a golf course.
But not everyone can walk 18 holes – especially in the heat of a Colorado summer. And not every course facilitates or even allows walking – especially in our beautiful mountain communities.
That means we ride. We still get steps in and can enter the Fall Fitness Finish as riders. But we pay extra to take what the Scots call a buggie, a little car powered by electricity or – noisier and stinkier – gas, that’s just big enough for two golfers and their stuff.
And we have a whole set of golf rules to follow that nobody ever teaches us. There’s no driver’s ed for golf cart drivers and no golf etiquette training for riders. So this summer I spent a month observing carts whenever I walked a course, drivers when I rode as a passenger and passengers when I drove.
I also asked players about what carts do that annoys them, and I got some great tips from Sandy Schnitzer, a CGA rules official and Broadlands marshal I was fortunate to have as my passenger when I drove in the CGA’s Hickory on a hot July morning at Lake Valley Golf Club in Niwot.
Anybody can turn the key to ON and press the accelerator on a golf cart. Off you go. Simple, yes? No. Taste this food for thought:
Who’s riding with you? Negotiate delicately who will drive and who will ride shotgun. “Some people would rather drive and some people would really rather not,” Sandy says. “And then there are some ladies that I don’t want driving me because I would just as soon get home in one piece.”
Do you need to have any discussions about smoking or music? Once you get past that, find out where the other player likes to have the cart positioned when it’s their turn to hit. You wouldn’t believe how many people have to have the cart on the other side of the ball, where they can see it, and how many other people refuse to have the cart there.
Or, are you hoping to get a cart all to yourself? That worked out well in the COVID era, but these days, says Sandy, “Some people just don’t want to ride with a stranger. They think they’re paying for a cart, but they’re just paying for a seat in the cart, and my boss wants me to pair them up – unless they want to go back to the clubhouse and pay for the extra seat.”
Did you leave room in the basket for your passenger’s stuff, or did you hog it all?
Do you pair up your foursome based on who likes whom? Consider instead which tees you’re playing from; if two are playing at 7,000 yards and two at 5,000 yards, it makes sense to make cart partners accordingly.
Do you know the course rules on carts? Check before teeing off. Some have designated on-off access points for fairways. Some do not want you to ride in the rough. Some want you to stay on the path. Most, though, would like you to observe the 90-degree rule and enter the fairway from the cart path at the point where your tee shot ends up. You can stay in the fairway after that, until you get close to the green. Then you want to park behind the green, out of range of the group behind you.
“I think some people don’t understand that golf carts can be dangerous if they’re mishandled,” Sandy says. “We’ve had people drive into bunkers and flip the carts over – and most carts weigh a little over 1,000 pounds, which is a lot of weight to have fall on you.”
Alcohol often plays a role in cart accidents. You won’t get arrested for driving drunk on the golf course, but you could hurt someone or something.
Lots of carts have signs on them telling riders to keep their hands and feet inside. The idea is not to get smacked by tree branches or rub up against walls.
One friend says she played with someone at a tournament who regularly stepped on the gas before she got herself all the way back in the cart. Not safe.
When it comes to course care, consider:
Dear Driver: This is not all about you, there is another player next to you. Pay attention to long morning shadows so that you’re not putting your Rider’s ball in the dark. Don’t be the Driver who took a phone call and left her Rider standing in the fairway. If you’re playing from farther back, wait to fuss around with your clubs until you arrive at the Rider’s tee. Don’t make your Rider carsick. Try to park in the shade on a hot day, under cover on a rainy day. When your ball is about even with your Rider’s on the other side of the fairway, park in the middle and shoot the flag for both of you. Practice saying, “Have everything you need?” before driving off to the green.
Dear Rider: The Driver is not your chauffer and you are not a prince(ss). If your ball is 10 yards away from the Driver’s, do not sit quietly while the Driver prepares to play – get out, get a club, be ready to walk to your ball. After you hit your shot, get back in the cart with your club; you can clean it at the Driver’s stop. If you are dropped off to play first, hit your shot and then start walking either to the cart or to your ball. If you’re 50 yards short of the green and the driver is on the green, get out of the cart with your wedges and putter and walk from there. If it’s the other way around, be prepared to slide over and take the cart up to the green when the Driver is playing.
The relationship between avowed walkers and golfers who ride can seem like that of cyclists and motorists. Riders disdain walkers for slowing them down. Walkers disdain riders for parking next to their ball and waiting for them to play instead of going ahead and playing their own shot.
But, you say, isn’t that golf etiquette? Player who’s away goes first?
Only in match play. My friend Linda regularly walks with three men who ride. They play from a longer tee, hitting before she does. She tells them, “After I tee off, please go up and play your second shot while I’m walking and preparing for my second shot.” So nobody is standing, or sitting, around waiting.
If you’re the only walker in a group, I’m told, say something like that at the first tee. “Hey, if you get to your ball before I get to mine, I’d really appreciate it if you’d go ahead and play so I can catch my breath and get ready for my shot. It’s much easier for me and it will keep us moving along.”
Says Sandy, “The guideline is if you’ve found the ball and it’s safe, then go ahead.”
If you’re riding with walkers, you can help them in many ways. In one of my clubs, we call these the Dolly Rules, in honor of a certain player who always rides: Have the walkers tee off first, so they have time to put their things away while the riders tee off. Have the walkers putt out first and get an early start for the next tee box. Exempt walkers from tending flags or any other caddie duties where applicable.
You can also drive ahead and identify which balls belong to walkers (point to the player, don’t just look at the ball and drive off when you see it’s not yours), or drive ahead to look for a walker’s ball that might be lost. That three-minute search limit doesn’t start until the walker (or the walker’s caddie) starts looking, so you can get a head start.
When two experts at cart golf ride together, there’s this thing that happens that is impossible to explain. The driver knows when to drop off the rider and when to wait, and the rider knows when to jump out with several clubs or to slide over to take the wheel. They both know where to park and when to drive off. It’s a very well-mannered, seamless dance that many of the game’s newbies can’t yet hope to perfect.
CGA rules official Greg With, a walker and fast-play advocate, describes it this way:
“The way to do it is to have a buddy system, where you go to the first ball and drop that player off, and that player needs to take a couple clubs with them. The other player goes to their ball and assesses their situation. And so when the first one hits, the other one is ready to hit and then you move forward from there.
“A lot of times you see people playing golf by committee. If you and I are playing, we go to your ball, and you and I both talk about what your options might be. And I sit and watch you play. and then you get back in the cart. And then we go to my ball and we do the committee thing again and debate my shot. And then off we go.
“In the meantime, we've lost a couple minutes, which may not seem like a big deal, but if you do that twice a hole and then multiply that by 18, that can add significantly to how long it takes to play a round of golf.”
Phew, just describing all that takes a long time! And I realize what I thought would be a tiny bit of food for thought for walkers and riders has turned into quite a meal. Digest it, and be sure to enter the Fall Fitness Finish, where walkers, walker-riders and riders are all welcome.
SIDE NOTES:
Walking gained popularity significantly in the West during COVID, but we still have more riders than walkers.
The National Golf Foundation’s 2021 report showed that golfers walked about 44 percent of rounds in the region that includes Colorado, Arizona, California, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, Nevada, Oregon, Washington and Wyoming.
That’s up from 36 percent in 2010 – and significantly more than our neighbors in the hot South, where only 21 percent were walking in 2021.
The CGA once again has rewards in store for walkers, walker-riders and riders who track their rounds starting in September until the close of the season November 15. Champion walker Suzie Frenchman, the South Suburban member who lapped the competition by thousands the last two years, says she’ll be back again – but there are three categories with multiple and weekly winners. Sign up at coloradogolf.org to join in the fun.
Veteran journalist Susan Fornoff has written about golf for publications including the San Francisco Chronicle, ColoradoBiz magazine and her own GottaGoGolf.com. She became a CGA member when she moved from Oakland, CA, to Littleton in 2016, and ghost-writes as “Molly McMulligan,” the CGA’s on-course consultant on golf for fun. Email her at mollymcmulligan@gmail.com.