We Sell Golf Cars...Right?
Edition: March/April 2012
A few short weeks ago I attended the Golf Industry Show in Las Vegas. The show seemed well attended and filled with the usual wide range of Golf Course suppliers with everything from grass seed to sand rakes. The attitude of the exhibitors was up and prospect for more business this year was more positive than in the past few years.
While I was visiting Las Vegas a person outside the trade show asked me what I did. I told them “My Company sells Golf Cars.” I saw the puzzled look we’ve all seen a hundred times. “Golf Cars...you mean Golf Carts right?” I proceeded to explain, (as many of us do), “You pull or push a cart and you drive a car.” Otherwise we would call our Toyota Camry’s carts instead of cars. Yet even with this clear distinction we get that predictable deer-in-the-headlights stare.
Let’s face it the trouble with the terminology is our own fault. Look around our industry, a large number of Golf Car Dealers use Carts in their name where Cars should be (even though most of them do not sell the push me or pull me type). So where did we go wrong? I suggest we didn’t. You have to look at the history to know that when we moved from push carts to carry our golf clubs on the golf course to driving them we just held on to the phrase. Over time we have made attempts to correct ourselves, but with mixed results. The general public and our industry are just fine with the duality of our name. When many of us call out for a tissue after we sneeze we ask for a Kleenex and we get what we need.
The Wikipedia web site for Golf Cars is titled Golf Carts. In the opening sentence they say, “A golf cart (called golf car…since “carts” are not self-propelled) is a small vehicle designed originally to carry two golfers and their golf clubs around a golf course…” See www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golf_cart for more information.
Here is more information from the Wikipedia web site. You may want to memorize a few of them for the next get together with friends and loved ones… (The answers below)
1. Originally golf cars were; a) electric or b) gas?
2. The minimum age to drive a golf car is the same in Alabama and California?
3. Reportedly, the first use of a motorized cart (there’s that word again) used on a golf course was by; a) Tex Ritter b)Bob Hope or c) J.K. Wadley
4. Put these famous brands in the proper order; a)Yamaha b) Club Car and c) Marketeer
5. True or False. The first golf cars were made in Augusta Georgia.
Please submit your ideas for topics in future articles to keitha@evergreenev.com.
(Answers) 1-b. 2-Both are 13. 3-J.K. Wadley from Texarkana is credited as using the first golf cars in Los Angeles. 4-Marketeer in 1951, Club Car in the late 50’s and Yamaha in the late 70’s. 5-False. The Marketeers were made in Redlands California.
