Rolling Around the Course - Knowing your Golf Carts

Golf has been around for centuries, and has become the subject of movies, music videos, books, even songs. The game of golf is also associated closely with the rich and famous, as the game itself seems to conjure up a slow life without care, and with all the comforts of servants and free time. There are caddies to carry everything, a large course through which golfers can putt or swing their way through, and golf carts on which they can get from one place on the course to the next.

Golf carts, or golf cars, as they are sometimes known, are small automobiles that were once designed to carry two golf players, along with their clubs. Golf carts were also meant to carry players and equipment faster around the golf course, so that the golfers would not waste their time walking. In recent years, however, golf carts are used in larger courses, where walking can be exhausting. Some players can opt to eschew golf carts in favor of a day spent strolling on the green, where everything, from simple chats to business deals can be discussed.

Today, golf carts are designed to carry more than two golfers and their equipment. These carts are open, with no air-conditioning, and are designed to carry more than two people through short distances. In general, golf carts can run at about twenty five miles an hour; they will generally be four by eight by six feet in volume, and will weight anywhere from nine hundred to about a thousand pounds.

Golf carts were once run with gas engines, since these allowed them to be filled with ordinary fuel that could be easily available to most golf courses. However, many golf courses are located in isolated areas, where gasoline can be difficult, and often dangerous to transport. Instead, carts today are powered with electricity, and were the very first kinds of automobiles to be powered in such a manner.

In fact, electrically powered golf carts are now mass-produced for many purposes other than ferrying golfers across a course. These electrically powered vehicles are also used in small housing communities, beach resorts, and desert areas. They have also been modified to fit certain weather and lighting conditions. However, because most of these carts are open, they can be difficult to use where pollution and noise are high, and where high speed cars or heavy trucks are used alongside them.

The latest models of golf cars have also been fashioned to resemble cars, and can have their own entertainment system, customized wheels, and body panels that can be custom built and painted in a variety of colors. In fact, with recent modifications made to golf cars, a market seeking aftermarket parts has also grown. Parts, such as electrically powered engines, can be important to other vehicle manufacturers. In fact, a Hummer golf cart has since been made available.

How important is a golf cart to a golf course? Not all golf courses are green, and neither are all of them flat. The most challenging golf courses will be composed of varying shades and textures of grass, and will be overlain not only with greenery, but with trees, bushes, water hazards, and sand as well. The most difficult courses will also be set on different elevations, making shots and estimations even more complicated. In such cases, a golf cart can benefit golfers who want to trek the entirety of a golf course without dropping dead from exhaustion first.

Most golf courses are composed of eighteen holes, all of which will be situated in different areas that are ensured to be hard to reach by golf course designers. Each area, as well as the tee-off point, will be composed of different materials, and will require different putting or swinging techniques. For instance, fairway grass, which consists of short, even grass, allows a player to see a ball well and thus strike it easily. The rough is an area where grass is allowed to grow to its maximum height, so that players caught in it can find it hard not only to strike the ball, but get it out of the rough in the first place.

Because such unevenness and variety runs rampant on the average golf course, any golf player will need a golf cart to get around. If you are interested in golf carts, whether for your community, resort, or golf course, or for your private use, then inquire at your local golf equipment provider and merchant. If you can steer the advantages of a golf cart to your side, and if you know the market and aftermarket parts market well enough, you can enjoy your cart, whether or not you play the game.