Golf Cart Stories

[iacas]

Here's a sad tale (and a warning, I suppose) about golf cart safety, but c'mon, we've all done something stupid in a golf cart before, right?

Here's my story:

Bedford, PA is in the heart of the Appalachian Mountains. One of the golf courses there features a 140-yard hole that plays about 200 yards as it's straight up a hill. The next hole is a 500-yard par 4... but the first shot is straight down that same hill.

My cousin and I were playing one time and we zipped down the hill in neutral (do it in "Forward" and the gears prevent you from going too fast). At the bottom of the hill, some taller grass hid some bumps. We hit the bumps, flew into the air for a good three seconds, and then landed with a thump. I flung the wheel hard to the left and the slightly dewy ground did nothing to stop our slide. We spun around two or three times before we finally came to a stop. Miraculously, all of our clubs were still in the bags (though a bit shaken!), and we were fine.

So we did it again.

[Cole_21]

I have been run over by a golf cart. I broke my leg when I had my leg pinned between 2 carts waiting on a teebox.

I was getting out of my cart and was walking around the back to get a club and some idiot didnt see my cart and slammed into the back of the cart and my leg.

As I know it, he is not allowed to play at the course anymore.

[Thrash13]

I have two stories to share, one from when I was in high school, and one was from the college days. Both were with my best friend, and he was driving in both cases. He is a lot crazier than I am.

The first one was 100% stupidity, as most of the cases are. We saw a little mound of dirt probably 2 or 3 feet high and decided to try and run over it and jump it. Yeah, we high-centered on that pile of dirt and we both had our cart priveleges taken away from that course. My best friend tried to tell them we didn't see it there, but they didn't fall for it..

My second story is something similar to your story Erik! It was a mildly wet day on the course, so the cartpaths were pretty slickish. We had just teed off on a par-5 and headed off to the fairway (well, maybe). The cartpath went downhill to a creek area and was very curved. We took off downhill going as fast as that cart would go and when we tried to turn it we did a full circle and just kept on going like nothing happened. That story don't do the experience any justice, as we would have easily flipped it if there conditions were dry. The wet conditions allowed us to spin around. We would have flipped into the creek if it would have been dry.

Needless to say, we always went a little slower down that area in the future appearances. Crazy stuff, and my heart was definitely beating.

[Donald MacKenzie]

I too have a spinning golf cart story. On a weekend trip to attend a relative's wedding in the early 1990s, I convinced my lovely wife to bring the clubs so we could enjoy a quick 9 together. It started drizzling on about the 6th hole, at which point my wife was ready to head in. Being the gentleman I am, I offered to finish out the 9 as fast as I could while she rode shotgun in the uncovered cart (she did have a big umbrella).

By the 8th hole, she was very grumpy. While driving downhill along the fairway, I decided to do a power-slide on the slick grass. There was just enough sidehill action to send the cart into a series of four FAST 360s. We were lucky not to flip, or for one of us to fly out of the cart, and I learned a lesson.

(Never golf with your wife in the rain is the lesson.)
(And don't dork around while driving a cart was reinforced, too.)

[PGAfan790]

I enjoyed reading all of your stories. I usually dont get a golf cart so i can get the exercise and i guess you would say the "full effect".

When have you seen a pro on a golf cart?

Anyway great story and if one of you golf's with me down the road you can take us off a cliff or something so i have something interesting to share.

[Cole_21]

Well I dont ride all the time either, it is only when I have a little time.

I enjoy walking more then riding though.

[iacas]

Well I dont ride all the time either, it is only when I have a little time.

I rarely ride, but that doesn't stop me from having at least ONE cart story. C'mon, now!

[Rafcin]

I wish I could walk more, but if you've seen the hills on my course (and spaces between green/next tees) you'd understand
Anyway - there is one hole straight downhill with an "S" shaped path. During a rainy day it's a true hazard, if you lock the wheels - you're GOOONE. One day being on the top of the hill I turned to my playing partner and said "don't take it personally... but I'll walk down" and I moved on. He hit his shot and proceeded driving down... I looked back from the green, just in time to see him jumping out of the cart while it was flipping over after he locked the wheels and went sidehill...
take wild guess, did I feel bad or good about the comment and walk ?

[RainmanP]

Hey, Erik, are you sure that wasn't Bradford, PA, Penn Hills Golf Club? At least that was the name when my parents moved there from Louisiana in the summer of 1971, before my senior year in college. Bradford, a small town, is home to Zippo lighters, Case Knives, and some other big companies. Those sound exactly like two back to back holes at Penn Hills. It was REALLY disheartening to get in the trap on the downhill side of that par 3 green, faced with a wall 6-7 ft straight up about 4 feet in front of your face. Then on the next hole on a dry still day I would sometimes hit a 4 wood into the creek that seemed to be about 300 yds out. I loved that little course, and shot my best score ever there, 83.

Regards, Raymond

Here's a

[Jeepthrills]

Two years ago I was playing in charity outing with my best friend who is not a golfer. We were on the 6th hole when it started to rain pretty hard and people started heading in. The 6th is about as far from the clubhouse as you can get and I made the mistake of letting him drive. He hits a side hill and starts to slide. This leads to him hitting the breaks and a series of donuts. We ended up backwards in a huge pine tree.

Two months later we are playing again and our wives are in the other cart. We watched them pull off 4 donuts in a row sliding down the fairway on the first hole. They may have wanted to go cart paths only that day. Go figure it was his wife behind the wheel.

My first golf cart experience was when I was 13. My 10 year old brother and I went out to play at Bay Valley Golf Course in Bay City, MI while our dad was working. We paid for pull carts but when we got down to the barn to pick them up, the kid gave us a power cart and kind of winked and nodded. We had the first tee time of the day and the sprinklers had just shut off. Needless to say we were totally out of control. We actually drove it through a fairway bunker.

[iacas]

Hey, Erik, are you sure that wasn't Bradford, PA, Penn Hills Golf Club? At least that was the name when my parents moved there from Louisiana in the summer of 1971, before my senior year in college. Bradford, a small town, is home to Zippo lighters, Case Knives, and some other big companies. Those sound exactly like two back to back holes at Penn Hills. It was REALLY disheartening to get in the trap on the downhill side of that par 3 green, faced with a wall 6-7 ft straight up about 4 feet in front of your face. Then on the next hole on a dry still day I would sometimes hit a 4 wood into the creek that seemed to be about 300 yds out. I loved that little course, and shot my best score ever there, 83.

Yes, I'm sure. It's Bedford - my grandma's lived there my entire life.

[muda]

I don't have any real good golf cart stories, but I do have one that involves a bucket of ice a nine iron and...uh, probably NSFTST (Not Safe For The Sand Trap)!

[Thrash13]

I don't have any real good golf cart stories, but I do have one that involves a bucket of ice a nine iron and...uh, probably NSFTST (Not Safe For The Sand Trap)!

You have to tell us now! :) That is the rule. Well, not really, but now you have our curiosity up..

[RainmanP]

Yes, I'm sure. It's Bedford - my grandma's lived there my entire life.

I was just remarking on the similarity of the towns names and the similarity of the holes. I guess there are a lot of those uphill/downhill hole juxtapositions on those courses up in the hills. Down here in the flatlands we have to build any kind of elevation changes so most courses are just flat.

Regards, Raymond

[BDR444]

On #2 on my home course.. I was with some buddies and was hitting a 120 yard approach in with a pitching wedge.. was watching where the ball was going and holding position and BAM a cart hit me from behind. My left leg got under the wheel and I got some killer tire burn from it. Couldn't walk for a few holes after that but I'm ok now.

Do have another golf cart story, a few years ago.. we had an ice storm (I live on the course) and the entire course freezes over with about an inch of ice.. man is it fun to take a golf cart out there. Its an extremely hilly course and you can lose control.. still pretty awesome though. There's nothing to slam into out there.

[wyldkard]

Too many crazy cart stories from high school. Not all of them were mine, but guys I was playing with.

However a cart related story from recently is...

About 12 of us from work go out every Thursday and play a 2 team scramble for fun. We were trying to beat daylight on the last hole and had all of the carts lined up to the right of where we were hitting from. We all hit our shots, then a guy who had been drinking while playing lines up his shot and takes his swing. I don't know how he managed to hit the ball so bad, but he toed it and it ricocheted off of the little 1" piece of aluminum on the front "windshield" bar and comes straight back at all of us nearly hitting 5 people. The odds of hitting that 1" piece out of the entire open area were at least a thousand to one.

[kafka01]

Just found that thread.

I play a lot in Egypt and nobody really cares how people drive the carts there. The manager told me a story where people actually sunk a cart in the lagoon not going into detail but i really can imagine happening this for two reasons. First, the course is completly built around the lagoon with quite good "acess points" and secondly some carts have really bad breaks (the ones that go the fastest actually) so i guess for people not 100 % sure of the fact that they might have a longer way to stop it than they think it might be very possible to sink it in the lagoon.

Personally i drive pretty reckless when sitting in a cart too. During a scramble i had to take one of the older carts (no breaks but very fast). After the 11th hole the cart really had big problems to accelerate and in some occasions someone actually had to push if it was uphill. We checked the battery - everything okay and when it was driving it was okay too, just a bit slow - so we couldnt figure it out what was wrong. As we gave the cart back one of the caddys asked me what i´ve done to the front bumper. I had no clue what he was talking about, until i checked. That thing stood around 30 degrees away from the normal position. Actually i must have bumped into another cart and never realizied that the bumper blocked the right front driving wheel acting the whole time as a break...

I bumped into other stuff before, streets posts, carts, palm trees, bunkers..., not people though even it was close, but never had any problems afterwards.

Driving carts is really fun!

[Q.Q.Quillume]

Many, many years ago. High Meadows Golf & CC. Roaring Gap, N.C. Golf trip with two buddies. They were in one cart, I in another. Very steeply sloping fairway, sloping down from right to left. Combination of circumstances. All the weight in the cart is on the left. Left side of cart is downhill. I might be driving just a tad too fast. Maybe. It was like slow motion. Cart is overturning. I roll out of cart. Cart does one complete revolution and comes to rest on the tires. I'm a few feet away amazed I didn't somehow get crushed or at least some small injury. My pride wasn't even hurt. Also amazed the cart wasn't damaged. It was pretty funny once I realized I was okay.