Golf with no cart? No thanks

About a week or two ago I had a tee time with a friend to play a nice course about 40 minutes… About a week or two ago I had a tee time with a friend to play a nice course about 40 minutes north of Pittsburgh.

It was going to be a nice break from work and a good chance to get away from the courses we normally play.

Then Pittsburgh weather intervened. The forecast for that day was terrible. The radar looked even worse, and we decided we didn’t want to drive 40 minutes just to see our tee time rained out.

But we really wanted to play golf.

The solution: ‘Why not play South Park,’ my friend said. ‘Well, why not,’ I said.

The round we played at South Park, entirely without rain by the way, constituted a four-and-a-half-hour answer to my rhetorical question.

I should start by explaining that there are three things (and three things only) that would make me recommend South Park. It’s cheap (about $15), it’s close, and it has a good distribution of par threes and par fives.

But aside from these three things, my last experience at South Park was unpleasant. The tee boxes weren’t well maintained, the pin placement was simply mean-spirited, and the starter was ineffectual.

But by far the worst part of my experience at South Park was not the fault of the course but instead my own mistake: I decided to walk the course.

Having spent the last few years walking golf courses, I like to think that I’ve developed a certain level of endurance. But lately I’ve almost exclusively taken a cart when playing 18 holes. I didn’t even think of using a cart at South Park because, after all, I never used one there in years past.

I’m not even sure why walking the course was so miserable that day. It wasn’t too hot or muggy or even too sunny, but I simply didn’t have as much fun

‘ And fun is really all that’s important when you play bogey or double bogey golf the way I do.

So this is my new resolution: I will always walk when playing nine holes or fewer. But from now on, I will take a cart when I play 18 holes.

This new policy has two drawbacks as far as I can tell.

First, taking a cart is more expensive than simply walking. But when you’re playing courses with $30, $40 or $50 greens fees to begin with, an extra $10 isn’t that big of a deal.

Second, you experience the course in greater depth when you walk it than when you spend the day in a cart.

Still, I think this is for the best. I like to relax when I play golf, and there is nothing relaxing about walking five miles with a bag of metal rods on one’s back.

But as far as this impacts the game itself, I feel as though this new principle will help my overall score.

Think about it: If you’re not exerting yourself by walking the course but instead riding in a cart, then you have more energy — energy that can instead be directed toward executing and maintaining a proper swing.

At least this is how I’m justifying what others might call laziness on my part.

There is, of course, one exception for this new rule: the golf course at Schenley Park. As many of you know, Schenley doesn’t have any golf carts on the course.

But I’ll continue to play Schenley, cart or not, because it’s too cheap and convenient a course to ignore.

After all, at $5 for 18 holes I can pretty much walk or limp off at any point if I’m tired.