"Carts due in by 8pm!"

Other than bad greens, the worst feature a golf course can have is a policy demanding the carts are returned well before dark. I play most of my golf in the evenings, and the long daylight hours of the summertime are great for that. Hate when my time on the course is limited by these awful policies. Carts should be due in when it gets too dark to play.

I've found that the Myrtle Beach area is the biggest offender of this. I've been to courses there where they kick you off the course by 6pm or so....in the late spring/summer! Anyone else ever encounter this nonsense?

8-pm doesn't seem that bad as long as they state it up front.

Plus, most courses will let you walk until dark. That seems fair.

Worst I've seen is 4pm they lock the proshop changing room and we had a 1pm tee time because that was the earliest we could get as nonmembers at a private club(was a Nationwide event course). They had to mail some of our group has stuff in the guest lockers and weren't told about the 4pm thing

Totally agree ... My FORMER course shut down the range at 6 in summer - their excuse was the range was to "warm up" and once the last tee time went off, there was no one left to warm up. Reality was, employees wanted to collect the range balls and get out of there ASAP.

The reason they do this in the summer is that they don’t want anyone enjoying the late afternoon weather.

> @Roody said:

> Why should the pro shop staff have to wait around all evening for you to bring the cart in whenever you please?

Most golf courses are open until it is too dark to play anymore. There is somebody going to be there to pick up all of the pins after play is done anyway. It is not that difficult to take a couple of carts to the cart barn as part of those final tasks. This is never an issue at my home course when I am trying to squeeze in a quick 18 that finishes up as it is getting dark. I do try to walk when I have time though.

Last year had an issue with this, we got to the starter at 4pm, he made no mention of the 7:30 cart return deadline. So off we go, and were on 18 tee and the guy comes flying out there all pissed off at us for being late, think it was 7:45 ish, made us come in. Couldn't believe he wouldn't let us finish at that point. We weren't belligerent to him as we weren't aware of the timeframe, but he definitely should have mentioned it when he sent us out at 4 to play 18. No hard feelings towards him, it was a Saturday night and I'm sure he wanted to go home, but had he let us know the 7:30 deadline, we would have been sure to be done by then.

I WISH my course would do this. I try to walk the front nine every weeknight, finishing at dark, or after. I'm always having to dodge the guys that grab a cart at 7:30, play a couple holes, then decide they're going to skip over to 8 and 9. If you want to play until dark, learn to walk. It's a very pleasant experience, walking up the last fairway in the dark.

I work weekends at a 36 hole county run, very busy facility & all carts must be in at sunset, which we tell every late group teeing off. We will go out & get them in if they don't come in on their own. The county is all about liability issues if something happens when it is dark, so we are told to get the carts in at sunset, no exceptions. We also do not bring in the flagsticks at night.

> @SNIPERBBB said:

> Worst I've seen is 4pm they lock the proshop changing room and we had a 1pm tee time because that was the earliest we could get as nonmembers at a private club(was a Nationwide event course). They had to mail some of our group has stuff in the guest lockers and weren't told about the 4pm thing

Wow that's crazy!! I played a course a few weeks ago... We teed off about 2. We made the turn about 4 and we all went to the snack bar to get a beer and something to eat. Dang thing closed at 3 on a beautiful Saturday in May??? So I went up to the pro shop to get something to snack on or drink... they didn't have a single thing to eat or drink. I mean...3 on a Saturday? really?

I have no issue with the carts being due in at a certain time. As long as that certain time isn't an hour or more before it gets dark!

> @kevina001 said:

> Other than bad greens, the worst feature a golf course can have is a policy demanding the carts are returned well before dark. I play most of my golf in the evenings, and the long daylight hours of the summertime are great for that. Hate when my time on the course is limited by these awful policies. Carts should be due in when it gets too dark to play.

>

> I've found that the Myrtle Beach area is the biggest offender of this. I've been to courses there where they kick you off the course by 6pm or so....in the late spring/summer! Anyone else ever encounter this nonsense?

It doesn't fit your schedule so it's deemed nonsense?

Did you ask their policy before making a tee time?

Interesting topic. I was out last night with a friend and our sons (both 7 year olds) and had taken a cart to try and expedite the round, but we were just finishing up around 825 and it was starting to get dark. I looked around and didn't see any other carts out on the course so I left the group after our tee shots on the 9th hole, returned the cart and walked back to the group. Our policy is carts in before dark, but I didn't want to hold up the kids working at the bag room/cart barn if we were the last cart out there.

I see both sides of the coin on this one, I think it's tough on the after work crowd to demand carts be in well before dark but it's also tough on staff to have to hang out until well after 9pm waiting for one or two carts to come in.

It's all about customer service. Too many courses are HORRIBLE at this. Give you an example:

As I mentioned earlier, Myrtle Beach area courses are often prime offenders of the "carts must be in early" thing. Even though golfers from all over the country travel hundreds of miles and spend thousands of dollars to go on their golf trip, you have courses trying to usher players off the course in the evenings, sometimes HOURS before dark. My group found a course a couple years ago where the starter/cart guy agreed to stay out until dark so our group could do an evening replay. And our group tipped the guy very well and were very appreciative. And every year our group comes back to this course and makes it a point to play there. The same guy was even there the next year and remembered us, and of course was more than happy to let us play in the evening again. We will always go back to that course because they know how to treat its players.

In a time when courses are struggling and closing left and right, things like this should be no brainers. Don't kick guys off the course before it's dark.

> @kevina001 said:

> Other than bad greens, the worst feature a golf course can have is a policy demanding the carts are returned well before dark. I play most of my golf in the evenings, and the long daylight hours of the summertime are great for that. Hate when my time on the course is limited by these awful policies. Carts should be due in when it gets too dark to play.

>

> I've found that the Myrtle Beach area is the biggest offender of this. I've been to courses there where they kick you off the course by 6pm or so....in the late spring/summer! Anyone else ever encounter this nonsense?

Have to agree with you on this. My feeling is , if the product or the service is paid for, it should be for the complete term of use.

I guess the issue really is either the the management does not want to pay the overtime to collect the golf carts after 8 P.M. or they should be looking to hire someone whom could stay until the golf carts are back.

A reasonable proposal is to let the pro shop knows, that either a refund for holes not completed ( or could be played before the 8 PM returning time which means 7: 45 PM cut off time for playing ) or a reduced green fee/cart fee reflecting the policy of returning the golf cart by 8 PM.

My guess is, twight light rate probably extend to all the holes the golfer could jam it in before pitch dark, so they enforced the cart return policy.

I would try to see if the golf course management would further reduce the rate for the cart return policy.

Tough luck if most the golf courses in the area have the same policy of returning the golf cart by 8 PM. I'd golf somewhere else if the business is not being fair to the consumers.

There is a golf course less than 10 minutes drive from my house, and I never played it after the opening year, because they shun on trunk slammers and really stingy abpout picking up the range balls right after the golfer leaves so no one could "finish" the left over golf balls which was paid by the previous user.

They never get my pennies and I made a point to let them know why.

Here in Phoenix right now in June, a lot of courses mandate that the carts be in by 7pm, and tell you "we turn the irrigation sprinklers on right after 7!" even if they don't actually do that.

You could easily play another 45 minutes, maybe 60 minutes if its clear skies, with the available summer daylight.

When I lived in PA, most public courses did not mandate a cart return time, you just played until dark or the 18th green, whichever came first.

at our club and most private clubs we can play till the dusk of dawn and the cart folks would still have to wait but do you really want to be that guy holding up the entire crew because you're trying to get in one more hole to post a score that wouldn't matter since you playing alone?

growing the game should mean a permanent ban on carts. Especially those 6pm cart folks who wants to squeeze in all 18 at twilight rate.

Walk

My club has a cart program. You pay $850 at the beginning of the season and get unlimited cart usage. There’s no way our club would demand carts be returned prior to darkness. This policy sounds cheap and ridiculous. If the ownership starts nickel and diming, perhaps it’s time to get out of the business. Whatever happened to “keep the customer satisfied “?

> @kmay__ said:

> Last year had an issue with this, we got to the starter at 4pm, he made no mention of the 7:30 cart return deadline. So off we go, and were on 18 tee and the guy comes flying out there all pissed off at us for being late, think it was 7:45 ish, made us come in. Couldn't believe he wouldn't let us finish at that point. We weren't belligerent to him as we weren't aware of the timeframe, but he definitely should have mentioned it when he sent us out at 4 to play 18. No hard feelings towards him, it was a Saturday night and I'm sure he wanted to go home, but had he let us know the 7:30 deadline, we would have been sure to be done by then.

Honest question: How would a 7:30 deadline ensure you would have been done by then? were y'all lolligagging throughout the round, instead of playing golf? If I'm playing golf on a course where I dictate the pace (be it first tee time or late in the day and no one in front of me), The time it takes me to finish the round is the fastest time I could finish the round. There has never been an instance of "if I had known I needed to be done sooner, I could have played faster". short of running to the ball and rushing through everything (if I have to do that, I just wont play), it just cant happen. If it can, you were goofing off and he has every right to be mad. And yes, I realize that it was only 3.5 hours into your round.

> @a_crook said:

> > @Roody said:

> > Why should the pro shop staff have to wait around all evening for you to bring the cart in whenever you please?

> Uh, because it's your job and you're in a service industry?

> That's part of the job. Golfers want to play as long as they can, and should be able to. Grow the game.

>

>

If you don't set a policy, it becomes open-ended and people will abuse it. This place set a policy. Being a good customer means knowing the policy and following it.

Don't like it? Show them your displeasure, and take your money elsewhere.

That type of policy always did annoy me and I just started finding other courses to play at. My home course is easy to walk so it's not that big a deal to me but occasionally I see the last man there waiting for the last cart(s) to come in.

What's worse, in my book, is we currently have a bartender for some nights that is packing up early and trying to usher us out. That's a severe violation.

> @caniac6 said:

> Walk

Many courses don't allow walking. Many others are not "walkable" for most people that would play there.

> @MaineMariner said:

> Let me give you the perspective of a former cart boy:

>

> Policies like this exist because literally every single day there is someone or some group who refuses to come in when it's too dark to play. "Too dark" is, of course, subjective, and people are CONSTANTLY stretching to play for as long as humanly possible. We'd have people out on the course at 9:15 claiming that they're almost done, just one more hole, etc. The course would always end up paying for two employees to hang out for an hour plus with nothing to do but wait around for this person to bring his cart in. Courses don't typically like to have to pay employees extra time to hang out and do nothing. After the cart comes in, an employee has to clean it out, hose it down, put it with the other carts, lock up the corral or barn or whatever is used for the carts, then go back in to punch out. The other employee would be off collecting the pins. You now have employees who started their day at 1 pm clocking out at 9:00, 9:30, 9:45. Nobody wants this.

>

> To make a long story short, people ruin everything. YOU might be conscientious and reasonable, but I guarantee you that not everybody else is. It's like paying for twilight rates. If twilight rates start at 4:00 pm and you have a tee time for 3:52, you should ask for and receive the twilight rate, right? Sure, but understand that nearly EVERY DAY we had people trying to definition of "twilight" to 3:30, then 3:00, then 2:30...

This. Precisely this.