Tipping the Beer Cart girl

[soup]

I never worked at a place where I earned tips - but I am always overly generous, especially places where my wife and I frequent. 20% minimum at restaurants - but if I get a bill for $31 and the service was good, I'll always leave $40.

My wife and I have twin girls who are 14 months - we take them everywhere, especially out for pub burgers or the local mexican joint. By the time we're ready to leave - underneath our table generally looks like someone put the girls' food in a blender and dumped it out. Not only will we leave a real nice tip when we have the girls with us, but we'll also cleanup the floor from the mess the girls made.

Seriously, the guy in the original post who gave the girl a $0.30 tip - he's probably making $180k per year. I just don't understand how a professional like him, who is very intelligent, doesn't understand he should duke the girl a couple of bucks.

I have another example. I get a call from an uncle - he's paid $10k for an outing at Old Westbury CC on Long Island for one of his clients but he can't make it. He gives me the foursome and tells me to have a good time with some friends or guys from work. I invite my office's managing partner - a guy who is a member of another club and who makes in the neighborhood of $1 million a year. Our foursome is assigned a fore caddie who was great. At the end of the round we're at the cars putting the clubs away - the managing partner gives the guy $20.....twenty bucks for humping it all over the course for five hours keeping track of everyones balls and being attentive to everything. I came prepared, but I was expecting the managing partner to take care of any out of pocket money that day as a thank you for the invite. I grabbed the guy and gave him another $80. It's mindboggling how this stuff is lost on people.

[hkmp5]

I would drive back to the club try and find the girl and tip her! Not only will you feel better but she might think someone in this Golf world cares about her as well!

[PhilsRHman]

I spent 8 years - high school, college and even once I was out working full time - working summers at a golf course, and it taught me how important generosity is. For what it was, my job was amazing, made $6-7/hour, plus somewhere around $100-250 a day doing everything from loading bags onto carts, cleaning clubs, doing favors (once went to the supermarket for steaks when the grill was closed and a member convinced the bartender to fire it back up on the DL).
I like to think that my service was a major part of making their experience enjoyable, whether consciously or subconsciously. And in return, I made more money as a teen and early 20-something than any of my friends. The funny thing is, the buck from one of the seniors who played 5 days a week, or the $5 from the stock broker who played once a day, I treated them all the same. Of course the guy who'd bring 3 or 4 foursomes down, hand me $50 to clean all their clubs after golf, and then wouldn't let me refuse as they each handed me a couple bucks on top of that, is balanced out by the group of 36 seniors who will give you and average of 50 cents. You figure it balances out.
But today, I always try to return the favor, as it were. I'm certain that the difference between the average tip and a very nice tip (what, 2-3 bucks extra) will mean FAR more to the person than it will to me.
With that said, I forgot my cash when going to a very upscale semiprivate course last weekend, and I was incredibly mortified, especially when the guy I joined up with on the tee wanted to tip the guys $5 for me and $5 for him, but they had no change so he gave them all $20. So embarrassing.

[peepingtom]

If the girl is getting paid by the club for selling water, then at $2.35 a bottle they should be making enough profit to pay her properly. If she is buying in the water herself and selling it with the permission of the club, again she is making enough profit already.

Caddys working for tips alone are a different kettle of fish, and if i am ever in the right job where i can afford to play these country club type courses, and they have caddy service then obviously, you need to be paying these guys wages yourself ... $15 dollars an hour seems fair to me .... more if they are good and you can afford it!

As a European the one thing we hate about going to the US is this automatic tipping rubbish .... employers should be paying people the correct wage, and we should not have to make up the difference!

As for the guys that wash your clubs etc. (I find this hilarious by the way).... if you want your clubs cleaned by them, you pay up ... if you dont you dont! Just like the guys working in bathrooms in bars in Dublin, I'd rather wash and dry my own hands thanks, and i certainly aint gonna feel guilty for not tipping them. Not when I'm paying €5 a pint.

At the end of the day you guys are paying a hell of a lot of money to play these type of places, and any additional services should either be paid by the club, or the customer, but not both!

[TheNextBen]

I would drive back to the club try and find the girl and tip her! Not only will you feel better but she might think someone in this Golf world cares about her as well!

No, she would be thinking that he's a psychostalker.

[getinthehole]

No, she would be thinking that he's a psychostalker.

ROFL.

I agree, the tip of $0.30 wasn't exactly much, but I agree with the guy too who said he probably thought it would be $2. $2.70 is awful prices for water.

[BluesMan]

I live in the UK where the 'tip' culture is quite different. No one ever tips the drinks cart guy when he comes around, and I expect he wouldnt accept it if anyone did try!

Obviously waiters/waitresses are tipped, but its funny reading everyone reactions going "$.30 is nothing!!!" when i was thinking "Eh? Your meant to tip these people" lol

[GoingfortheGreen]

Funny story - first time I visited London, I was tipping the cabbies 1 pound (even on fares of 4-6 pounds). It's a coin in your pocket, and you want to get rid of it. The cabbies were all, "cheers mate", "thanks guvnor", etc. My friend who lived in London said that was quite excessive, and they would have been really pleased with 1/2 that tip.

I am guilty as charged - on many occasions I have tipped the cart girl $4, $5, $6 on a $10 order, if she is really hot. But normally at my home club I give $8 for two Gatorades that cost $6.50.

BTW, I don't think earning $150K (before taxes) is a lot of money. Especially if you have a family, mortgage, schooling, and a god-forsaken hobby known as golf. Golf may be the most expensive game to play, bar none. To learn is expensive, equipment is expensive, balls are expensive, so many damn gadgets, to play is expensive, etc. Damn you Taylor Made!

[GreensDruid]

I would have tipped more than the 30 cents - especially if she isn't making minimum wage and relies on getting tips.

Having said that, I just returned from an extended trip to Korea and Japan and never once did I need to fish around my pockets for a tip. Same experience in most of my travels in Europe. Service was given cheerfully and respectfully - it's part of the job and they are paid for it. So I think the whole tip business sucks, but you can't blame the people who rely on those tips - they didn't create the system. I just wish we'd change it so that people can make a decent wage without relying on the kindness of customers.

[niblick]

I played in a scramble recently where everything on the beer cart was free; one of the tournament sponsors was picking up the tab for everything. Needless to say, they had a hard time keeping that thing stocked, and that gal made some serious cash in tips.

[hammer84]

I tip based solely on service. I could care less how hot a cart girl/waitress looks.

Put yourself in their shoes. Would you think you earned a .30 cent tip. I have associates that bitch about their bonus being 5k less than the should have got and then leave 50 cents at the lunch table. Nice.

Most restaurants report 8% of your ring out as tips to the feds. If you stiff or go cheap they you are costing them money. Great service get 25-30 % from me. I also hvae kids that can create quit a mess. I always add a few more bucks a kid surcharge

Cart girls usually drive around the course in reverse order. On a hot day I'll grab the cart girl buy a drink and drop her a 5-10 tip and ask her to hit us up a few extra times thru the round. She now is going above and beyond her "assigned duties".

You get what you pay for and service is one of those things.

[BaronV]

At first, I agreed with you--$.30?!?!

At the public and muni courses I’ve played at a small bottle of water was $2.50 and a Gatorade about $4.00. Still tipped the cart girl a buck per drink, night club rules per se.

[dmz]

First of all...let me say from the outset that I HATE the beer cart. It's a distraction. The majority of the people (male or female) courses hire to drive that damn cart don't know anything about the game. I don't know how many times I've had them drive up in the middle of my swing, lock up the brakes on the course, gas up the cart right next to the putting green, etc, etc, etc. And then there's the fact that they, slow play way down. Don't get me wrong, I'll toss back a beer or two during a casual round, but I always buy from the clubhouse pre-round or at the turn.

Only rarely will I buy something from the beer cart. Usually it's a really hot day and I'm looking for a gatorade (Michigan made it really hard for courses to have water on the course). If I buy something, I will tip, but I'm not going to tip a dollar for a $2 gatorade, that's a tip of 50%. No One in their right mind would tip a waiter or waitress that much. Imagine grabbing a post round meal at $15 bucks and throwing down a $7.50 tip. I'm not sure any of us would lay out that kind of cash except to show off.

[AndrewM]

BTW, I don't think earning $150K (before taxes) is a lot of money. !

Then I think you should be giving some of your money to me, just because. According to the US census, only the top 5% of all HOUSEHOLDS in the US made over 167K. If you dont think one person making over 150K is a lot, then you watch too much Fox News.

[Logie]

As said above, its not really the norm to tip the drinks cart in the UK although i usually let them keep the change.

Tipping a caddy is another thing, i would have no problem giving them a tidy tip for 18 hole service!

[iacas]

Then I think you should be giving some of your money to me, just because.

It depends on where you live. I turned down $80k job offers out of college because renting a 900-square-foot apartment cost $3k/month in some areas. After taxes and rent, I'd have all of about $10k to live on.

I now live in Erie. A "good wage" here is $30k. Heck, you can buy a house on that. In Los Angeles, secretaries make $60k/year. $150k ain't the same everywhere.

[Jeepthrills]

It depends on where you live. I turned down $80k job offers out of college because renting a 900-square-foot apartment cost $3k/month in some areas. After taxes and rent, I'd have all of about $10k to live on.

Very good point. I was looking at jobs in Chicago that paid $15-20,000 more than I make now, but the cost of living is much higher there and I would end up working for less relative to my expenses.

That said, where I live now in Waterford, a suburb north of Detroit, I could live very well off $150k.

[GoingfortheGreen]

Then I think you should be giving some of your money to me, just because.

I wish I could, except I don't have any left at the end of the month

If you dont think one person making over 150K is a lot, then you watch too much Fox News.

Yes, I do watch Fox News. And, I never said $150K is not enough for O-N-E person. What I said was $150K is not a lot of money if you have a family with kids, mortgage, school and medical expenses, golf habit, etc., etc. I still stand by that statement. And no, I do not live in a high-cost of living area.