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I had just made a routine par on the 7th hole, fully settled into a round at an enjoyable resort golf course in South Florida, when a stern warning coming from my golf cart shattered the afternoon's peace.
"YOU HAVE ENTERED A RESTRICTED AREA," its capital letters screamed at me. "PLEASE RETURN TO THE COURSE IMMEDIATELY!"
The trouble was, I was already on the course: pin-high left of the green, all four wheels kissing concrete.
After several beeps (from the cart) and curses (from me), the warning disappeared as abruptly as it had come, while I reached a conclusion I'd been approaching for years:
In-cart GPS systems are one of the worst things in golf. They are an infantilizing nuisance, an obnoxious intrusion and an odious drain on the soul of a great game. To steal a 15th-century turn of phrase from Scotland's King James and his famously futile ban, they should be utterly cryit doun.
Why golf courses should say no to golf cart GPS systems
Each of the big-3 golf cart manufacturers has their own versions of golf cart GPS. They are annoying at best, infuriating at worst.
Don't get me wrong; I understand the idea's appeal. Instant access to information about the hole you're playing - especially on a destination course of limited familiarity - sounds helpful. Practically every car has a touchscreen nowadays, so why not golf carts?
Let me - and many other frustrated golfers - count the ways.
The GPS on the cart stopped working on hole 11 and did not respond to the proper reboot of the system. We then had to guess at the yardage because the sprinkler heads had no yardage information. A staff member who was handing out cold water on the 15th hole was able to diagnose the problem as a dead GPS battery and was kind enough to swap out the battery from his cart to our unit.
For one, golf cart GPS systems tarnish golf's analog charms. For centuries, part of the game's essence has been its ability to transport us away from everyday life to someplace more contemplative, more engaging. Screen time dominates 21st-century life - does it need to infect golf, too?
Besides, it's not as if GPS-enabled golf carts even work well. The technology has improved shockingly little since I first encountered it in the late 1990s. It's metastasized to thousands of courses by now, but measurements are still wrong as often as they're right. How many otherwise great swings have resulted in bogeys or worse because a golfer foolishly trusted the GPS yardage? I don't think I can count that high. I also cannot tell you how many times a course has failed to update the hole locations in its GPS systems, rendering all yardages useless and misleading, turning the almighty screen into an intermittently noisy rotating billboard for the course's snack bar or some local real estate agency. At other times, the best the system can manage is yardages to the middle of each green. Congrats, GPS screen - you're just as helpful than the nearest sprinkler head.
I have heard hushed legends of GPS golf carts helping speed up play, but like a golfer who actually drives the ball as far as he says he does, I have yet to see it with my own eyes. Golfers are getting slower, not faster. GPS screens and Bluetooth speakers gum up the game.
Another loathsome effect of golf cart GPS is how it has decimated the yardage book business. While the screens try (and often fail) to give quick surface-level information to golfers, good yardage books actually deepen a golfer's level of engagement in a shot, hole or round thanks to the richness and detail of the information on offer. Yardages to and from various landmarks and sprinkler heads jump off the page in a way that would take far longer to extract, clumsily, from an overhead touch screen. Reading a yardage book is a golf skill. Interacting with a dumb GPS is a chore. If I had a dollar for every time I asked for a yardage book in a pro shop and was told, "No, we have GPS in the carts," I would have...nearly enough money to buy a GPS-enabled golf cart.
Yes, of course GPS carts are more expensive than their analog counterparts. Because the shallow cool-factor of GPS has created a cascading race to keep up with the neighbors, course operators often pony up without a second thought, putting themselves on the hook for contracts tacking on five figures to already growing annual operating expenses. Even local courses, whose golfers don't really need the service GPS carts provide, are leasing them out of perceived obligation. One operator I talked to who recently made the switch to GPS carts liked knowing where all carts were at all times but lamented how poorly the invisible gate feature of his course's screen systems worked around tees and greens.
Which brings me to the worst of a long list of demerits for golf cart GPS: the way it treats golfers not as responsible individuals, but as untrustworthy toddlers. For years, scorecards would say "Please keep golf carts no closer than 30 feet from greens and tee boxes," and that was that. Nearly all golfers obeyed, and the ones who didn't were warned or stripped of their cart privileges altogether. Setting up artificial, often invisible no-go zones sends a clear message to golfers that managers a) do not believe they can act sensibly, and b) are not interested in personally upholding the rules anyway. They would rather outsource feeble enforcement to technology that is shoddy at best. The resulting atmosphere of distrust and detachment breeds disdainful golfers and compromises the overall experience unnecessarily.
I know cart sales reps are pushing screens hard. I know shallow golfers have come to expect screens in carts, no matter how much they strip soul out of the game. But I also know that any golf course with the backbone to say no to GPS golf carts (especially if they also say yes to yardage books) has my unyielding respect. If a golfer is going to use a cart, the very least he or she should expect is for it not to torpedo the experience of playing the game.
"WOULD YOU LIKE TO USE THE ELECTRONIC SCORECARD???" Just leave me alone - I'm begging you.
Comments (9)
So get rid of the GPS systems on your golf carts at your home course. See how long they stay in business.
I for one would not go there.
The amazing thing about all this complaining about GPS is that the USGA NATIONAL GHIN APP has GPS AVAILABLE FOR FREE WITH THE PRICE OF YOUR ANNUAL MEMBERSHIP using most cell phones for most courses. Instead of using your GPS Enabled watch, your GPS Enabled Phone or various other Gadgets that tell you information about distances the GHIN App has no additional cost unless you want Green information . The GHIN APP can also allow you to track a lot of additional information about your GIRs and Fairways Hit shots and putting performance .
As far as GPS on carts for the most part it speeds up play and provides better information to determine how far each middle of the green at a minimum and exact distance to holes when conditions are perfect between the sourse and the PIN. Finally technology is always a blessing and a Curse. Many golf courses take significant damage by the few drivers that go wherever they want regardless of the conditions. If you follow the local rules concerning where to get back to the cart paths the issues will be few except the occasional issues that even golf carts without GPS can have as they can break down.
You forgot to mention the "feature" that forces the cart to be reversed out of the restricted area (at a pace that is slower than my great-grandma's walker). If you want me out of the restricted area, let me get out. Don't force me to back up at 1 mph.
Oh, and what about the constant messages/ads? No I don't want to order food at the turn. Please stop bothering me....touch to return to golf....
What planet are you living on? I, as well as my golfing buddies refuse to play at courses which have no GPS on their golf courses.
Yor are an idiot. These actually help the no one problem in golf, speed of play.
They also keeps idiots from driving carts in bad places. If there are mistakes inform the club staff as you would any other problem so it can be corrected.
You sound like some old curmudgeon who doesn't want anything to change. Like my mom in the '80s when cars with voice features first came out: "No car is going to tell me what to do!"
Did it occur to you that golf cart GPS systems, like navigation systems, cell phones, and a host of other similar products can get better? Did it ever occur to you that these systems actually allow the course to enhance the aesthetic elements in golf? Like no more need for stakes, ropes, and signs all over the course telling you where to go and what to do. Not to mention, objects your ball can hit can cause your ball to careen off course or go into water. So much for your serene 'good old days'.
Do you not remember the number of times you looked in vain to find a sprinkler head with the yardage, the time you spent pacing off between yardage markers and your ball, the number of times the marker gave you the wrong distance?
How about you lighten up, stop being a glass-half-full guy, or better yet, become part of the solution and help make things better rather than imagine a past reality that never existed?
There are soooo many options to use instead of the in-cart GPS. Every cell phone on the planet can be used as a GPS device on the course. Personally, I use a Garmin Approach, and it is just as good as any in-cart GPS. Supplementing the Garmin with my range finder, I never need to find a sprinkler head for my yardage, nor do I have to rely on a potentially inaccurate in-cart GPS system. Best of all, I don't have to be harassed by messages (fix your pitch mark, don't drive in this area, do you want lunch at the turn) and advertisements (yes, commercials) from the in-cart GPS.
The GPS for yardages, I can take it or leave it. However, the overly restrictive use of geo-fencing to keep carts out of certain areas has gotten out of hand. I understand the need to keep carts out of areas that may be under repair, damaged or other critical infrastructure. When the geo-fencing restricts travel between holes to a delineated path, without any deviation, the system begins to falter. The worst-case scenario is when the cart is forced to reverse course to escape the restricted zone, when moving forward may actually provide for the shortest distance back to the allowable area.
The golf cart Gps are totally annoying when trying to navigate the course in a cart as far as boundaries. I personally like my handheld Gps over a range finder or cart Gps. If I had no other choice I would rather use the cart Gps over no Gps.