Does One Person per Golf Car Speed Up Play at Your Course?

[PittShark]

My experience has been yes....it definitely is having an effect. We live in PA where courses have been closed (reopening on Friday) but we live in Southwestern PA and somewhat-regularly go to OH and WV to play certain courses anyway. Because of this, my one buddy and I have been playing a good bit since the lockdown....just in other states. Most every course has put safeguards in place and the single cart policy is certainly one of them. Side note - you'd be surprised by how some courses are being more lax with that than you'd think.....just in the last week i've seen "1 person per cart RECOMMENDED but not required" and also we just played somewhere on Saturday that cut and hung large pieces of clear vinyl in each cart and had players sharing carts again with a flimsy divider in the middle.

Many of the comments already made in this thread hold true with things we've observed/experienced in the rounds we've played in the last month:

Overall pace is definitely better due to both the individual carts and the more spread out tee times. One course in OH that we've found to be notoriously bad with slow play, we were able to play it twice and both rounds were faster than any we've played there. I'm not ready to claim improvements like a full hour, but upwards of a half hour so.....definitely. I also don't belong to a club so I'm just observing what I'm seeing over a handful of different courses.I'm emphasizing that OVERALL pace has been better. As some have mentioned, single-rider carts can't magically speed up a slow player. We played a resort course in WV this past Wednesday and towards the end of the round we caught up to the twosome in front of us. Despite being in their own carts, they were clearly just SLOW. We all know that it's not a perfect science but when talking about the big picture/average....yes, the pace is up.I'm in the boat that says golf shouldn't have to be something that you hurry up and do as quick as possible. I enjoy being out there and don't feel a need to get done as fast as humanly possible, however.....I don't enjoy spending that time waiting for the group in front. What we've seen over the last month has shown me that as a whole, individual on-course transportation DOES cut down that waiting time. I would absolutely love to see ANY courses in our area start experimenting with newer tech (golf boards, segways, etc), however I have a hard time picturing it. But after these recent experiences, I'm a firm believer that doing so would improve the overall POP.

 

[Pepperturbo]

Carts are not the topic. The question is will one man per cart speed up the game and I said NO. Maybe you misunderstood the question. A cart does NOT determine pace of play, the person driving the cart does affect pace of play. All four guys were slow. Why? They were talking all the time and thought they were big hitters and waited on Par 5's thinking they'd reach the green in two but none of them did.

[torbill]

 

A few of the courses in our area have the two-wheel scooters. They charge more to rent than a golf cart, like twenty bucks more, but that’s the novelty factor at work. Has nothing to do with cost. From a cost standpoint two of the scooters costs no more than one golf cart - scooter manufacturers are very aware of how to appeal to golf courses and they make sure that there is no cost penalty to go with their products.

Two wheel anythings may not be the way to go for much of the general public, though, as they require skill. But there are three wheel versions that sell for four grand, which is still competitive with 2 person cars. Three wheels isn’t as stable as four wheels, but old timers can recall the time when two person golf carts had three wheels and I don’t recall of a lot of safety problems with them.

https://www.fattiregolfscooter.com/shop/

So, without question there are competitive, cost-effective ways to have single player mobility. And one way to encourage it is to do the exact opposite of what the courses that rent scooters are doing today - on a per player basis, rent the scooter for less than a 2-person car.

As a long-time walker I agree with the experiences and concerns of other walkers here. I can keep up just fine with 2-players per cart. All of my group used to walk and we could walk a fivesome in four hours and a foursome in no more than 3-3/4 hours. (And sometimes my group would be some pretty mediocre players. But they knew how to walk to the ball and hit it. If you aren’t anal about setting up your golf shot it really doesn’t matter too much how many times you hit it so long as you aren’t hitting it into the woods too much.) And if it is cart path-only I wait on my playing group. But I can’t keep up with single player carts. But maybe that doesn’t matter. Maybe in a world of one cart per player a walker slows overall play down some, but I’ll bet that it is still going to be a lot better than 2 players per cart.

[phil75070]

I can't speak to one person to a cart speeding up play for the course in totoal, but it cuts about 30 minutes off our round. We are a threesome that has 2nd tee time and we play in right around 3 hours with two carts, and about 2:30 with three.

[farmer]

When things return to whatever new normal is, the crux will be if players are willing to pay double rate to play one to a cart. If not, then that is where the the scooter type carts would be the popular choice. I would rather see 4 guys bopping down to their own ball on a scooter than watching them traverse fairways going to each ball individually in a cart.