Have to pay for GPS?

[FlyingLaw1]

Experienced a new one the other day!

Me and my golf buddy drove to a small town about an hour away to play their municipal course. Its not the nicest around but its generally fairly well maintained and its an interesting layout so its worth a trip or two a year. We arrived and--much to our surprise--they have brand new really nice golf carts. Super comfy seats and a GPS screen that is amazing. This screen was easy to use and had several features (including MLB scores??).

 

We get to the second hole and for some reason the GPS isn't working anymore... It still shows the layout of the hole but there are no yardages anymore. We figured maybe the signal was lost or something and that the yardages would be back soon... hole 3 nothing. 4 nothing. Finally we start poking around on the screen to see if we can reset it.

 

We eventually figure out why the GPS wasn't working. There's a button that says something along the lines of "Use for one round: $5.99".... Yup they want you to pay 6 bucks to use the cart GPS for the round. We both have range finders so wasn't a big deal at all... But we both commented on how cheap it was to charge customers to use the cart GPS. I've played MANY golf courses and I've NEVER experienced one that charged for GPS.

 

Has anyone else had this happen? Hopefully this "un-bundled" service doesn't become the norm like it is in the Airline industry...

[Stuart_G]

Used to be very common when GPS was a new 'thing' in golf - especially for resort courses. Now personal hand held units are so cheap and prolific that most clubs don't bother with cart mounted units at all anymore.

[FlyingLaw1]

> @Stuart_G said:

> Used to be very common when GPS was a new 'thing' in golf - especially for resort courses. Now personal hand held units are so cheap and prolific that most clubs don't bother with cart mounted units at all anymore.

 

Interesting.... Guess I wasn't playing much golf when GPS was first around. Learn something new everyday!

 

I've played courses that don't have GPS (which is fine)... Just figured it felt pretty chintzy to charge to use it for the round. To me GPS is one of those things that I don't use (I don't have any apps/watches that have GPS) unless its available. Heck I used a yardage book until about 3 years ago!

[Bonneville85308]

There is one lower end public course in my area that has the big monitors mounted on the carts, but they just show the general layout of the hole with no yardages. Not even an option to pay for yardages. You can also pull up an overall map of the course, or send messages to the clubhouse. I was told by the golf staff that the system is really only for them to be able to monitor the locations of the carts on the course. Sort of weird that they would pay for the fancy monitors just for this, when you can buy little GPS transmitters smaller than a pack of smokes and just mount them somewhere on the cart to transmit position to the golf shop.

I use a GPS watch everywhere I play, so cart-mounted GPS is of no value to me.

[HatsForBats]

Never come across that even when GPS was a new thing. I can't see many golfers going for it on a long term basis. Sounds like they got sold on something as a money maker and are going to be disappointed. I could be wrong.

[FlyingLaw1]

@Bonneville85308 That seems like a huge waste of money... I have no idea what these systems cost but they cannot be cheap...

@HatsForBats Yeah I cannot see many golfers at this course paying to use the GPS... Especially since the GPS at this course was free until the new carts...

[Stuart_G]

Nothing's really free. So only 2 choices:

1. jack the prices so everyone pays for it (whether they want it or not)

2. only charge those who want the service.

 

Personally I'll always prefer the second option.

 

[cristphoto]

One of the features of cart gps is to allow the pro shop to monitor golf traffic. They can instantly see where holdups are. Plus when it’s cart path only the cart will turn off after several seconds of being off the path. When I worked in a pro shop we had these on our carts and it was humorous when people would call in saying their cart died. We would send someone out and find their cart in the fairway on path only days.

[Roadking2003]

> @cristphoto said:

> One of the features of cart gps is to allow the pro shop to monitor golf traffic. They can instantly see where holdups are. Plus when it’s cart path only the cart will turn off after several seconds of being off the path. When I worked in a pro shop we had these on our carts and it was humorous when people would call in saying their cart died. We would send someone out and find their cart in the fairway on path only days.

Exactly. They provide much more than just distance to the pin. You can even order food to pick up at the turn, so it eliminates that delay.

 

[bigmoneyp]

> @FlyingLaw1 said:

> Experienced a new one the other day!

> I've played MANY golf courses and I've NEVER experienced one that charged for GPS.

 

Rest assured that you have always paid for GPS service, they just included it in your green fee. Although it would be nice to have known ahead of time, I still feel its much better to let people pay $6 that want it rather than charge everyone a $6 higher greens fee.