Benefits for Walking Golfers.
Benefits for Walking Golfers.
Hi, I’m Mel Sole, Director of Instruction at the Mel Sole Golf School, headquartered at Pawleys Plantation Golf and Country Club in Pawleys Island, SC. We conduct 1, 2, and 3-day golf schools, hourly golf lessons, and senior golf schools—any golf instruction program your heart desires. Give us a call at 800-624-4653 or 843-237-4993. We will be happy to book a commuter school or a package that contains accommodations, golf, and golf school.
Golf Blog by the Mel Sole Golf School.
If you are a passionate walking golfer, you may like to join The Walking Golfers Society. This group believes that walking is essential to the enjoyment of golf. That the game was intended to be played this way.
Many courses require you to take a golf cart rather than walk. The main reason offered is the revenues generated by 2 people paying golf cart fees, in addition to green fees.
However, quite a few courses stretch from Oregon to New Jersey, where you are welcome to carry your bag. Or use an electronic pushcart. Click on Course Reviews for info on these courses.
Benefits for Walking Golfers include the obvious one that it provides more physical exercise. But it also is better for the golf course and the surrounding environment. A cart, especially in wet weather, has much more impact on the grass. And cart paths are a bit of a blight on the lovely natural environment.
Read more to learn why this passionate society feels that golf courses have a big opportunity before them to benefit from walking-only golf.
As mentioned on The Walking Golfer homepage, there are many benefits of walking when you golf.
Four primary benefits are the following:
Physical.
- You burn almost twice as many calories as you would riding in a cart
Scoring.
You shoot better scores than those who are riding in a cart
Social.
You have a much better opportunity to interact with all of your playing partners.
Experience.
You can fully enjoy the natural beauty of the course from tee to green
Please click on each benefit to find more information.
The benefits of walking are not limited to the golfer, they extend to the golf course and the surrounding environment.
Walking Golfers.
A walking golfer has much less impact on the turf than a golf cart, which is evident any time you play in the rain because you can see where carts have ripped up swaths of grass that will take months to mend.
If a golf course or club is walking only, then there is the added benefit of saving expenses on building and maintaining cart paths, while also significantly improving the aesthetics of the course.
Cart paths are little more than a long scar on the landscape that disrupt natural sightlines, create artificial man made obstacles and negatively influence an architects ability to freely route the course. A cart path free course is a blank canvas, while the necessity to accomodate cart paths is restrictive to the architect as an artist.
Many contend that the revenue generated from cart rentals outweigh the cost and maintenance of cart paths.
I think this is bogus, and I think that golf courses have a huge opportunity in front of them to benefit from a movement towards walking only golf.
Carts bring in revenue, but the turf, cart path and golf cart maintenance costs erode that revenue to a point where it would be advantageous for courses to rent motorized push carts.
Electronic push carts are cheaper to purchase and maintain than motorized carts which is great for the golf course, while also providing the walking golfer with a means of walking eighteen without having to carry his or her bag.
Being a walking golfer is much better for the golfer, the golf course, the bottom line and the environment.
Source: The Walking Golfer Mel Sole Golf School.
Pictures: Kyle Henderson Mike Serigrapher
Thanks for reading - Benefits for Walking Golfers. I absolutely love walking a golf course!
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