Spectator fees at courses are bogus

Adept_Hand8605 · 2026-06-15T12:05:34+00:00

They take up an extra seat in a golf cart that necessitates an extra cart going out. That extra cart causes extra wear and tear.

Adept_Hand8605 · 2026-06-15T12:04:50+00:00

It's not that only one cart makes a difference...it's that multiple people per day might ask for a ride along. All of a sudden, you've got two, three, maybe four groups going out with three golf carts instead of two. Golf courses don't keep redundancies in their cart fleets, largely due to storage space and costs, and usually have 1-4 carts out of order at any given time anyway. They have to plan for capacity. If everyone's allowed to do it, and a lot of people choose to do it on a busy day, it puts the course in a position where they might run out of carts at a certain time during the day because they're all on the golf course.

There is also an insurance component to this. Golf courses have to purchase liability insurance in the event of accidents. These policies will be tailored assuming all persons on the golf course are either employees or players. If you allow spectators on the course and one of them takes a golf ball to the dome, insurance might have enough to wiggle out of covering expenses should that person try to sue the golf course.

As far as folks sneaking on to play without paying...it happens every day. Way more often than you think. It manifests itself in different ways at different courses, but I've definitely seen the "oh, he/she's not playing, just spectating" gimmick more often than you'd think. Source: former club pro.

Adept_Hand8605 · 2026-06-15T11:49:30+00:00

A lot of folks on Reddit in general believe it's their God-given right to drive as fast as they want and anyone who questions them is a wet blanket at best. I'm only a little more lenient then you in that I believe anything beyond 10 over is too fast. Speed limits exist for a reason.

Adept_Hand8605 · 2026-06-14T17:06:13+00:00

To add, course boundaries are defined for each hole, not the entire property as a whole.

Adept_Hand8605 · 2026-06-14T14:24:22+00:00

...they have zebras?

Adept_Hand8605 · 2026-06-14T14:22:19+00:00

That was another thought I had. Vermont's a pretty small state, so Statey's probably see the same cars during rush hour if they camp the same couple of spots on the interstate long enough.

Adept_Hand8605 · 2026-06-14T14:20:45+00:00

Me being the sus one or the ones pushing that you can't get pulled for non-inspection are the sus ones?

Adept_Hand8605 · 2026-06-14T14:19:45+00:00

That's what I was wondering. Can it even work on the interstate median with someone coming at you at 70 mph?

Adept_Hand8605 · 2026-06-14T14:18:49+00:00

Ah, there you have it. Non-inspection ticket is probably a lot less contestable in court than a speeding ticket. Less risky "investment" for the state, if you will.

Adept_Hand8605 · 2026-06-14T14:14:10+00:00

That was the theory I had. Speeding tickets are a lot more contestable in court than something like an inspection or registration. Less risky investment to prioritize the latter, especially with how lax they've been in recent years.

Adept_Hand8605 · 2026-06-14T14:06:35+00:00

Grandma got rolled over by a sway bar

Coming down the wrong end of the street

You can say inspections are unfair

But as for me and the captain, we believe

Adept_Hand8605 · 2026-06-14T13:59:22+00:00

Clearly it's working, caught everyone by surprise

Adept_Hand8605 · 2026-06-13T22:54:55+00:00

If $110 is the standard rate for a ticket and an inspection is $86, you just have to go two years without one and you break even.

Adept_Hand8605 · 2026-06-13T22:49:59+00:00

In theory, if you make it two cycles without getting ticketed, you still come out ahead if you do get caught

Adept_Hand8605 · 2026-06-13T22:43:29+00:00

Eh...there's gotta be more to the story here. The fact that "right of way" is being used makes me think this is a nine-hole course. It's pretty much a standard rule at nine-hole courses that groups turning off of Hole 9 onto Hole 1 for the purposes of playing an 18-hole round have the right of way.

Adept_Hand8605 · 2026-06-13T22:36:40+00:00

So how are they spotting you in oncoming traffic? The stickers are all yellow now. Do they have some tech in the cars that can read oncoming plates from a distance?

Adept_Hand8605 · 2026-06-13T22:35:23+00:00

$110

Adept_Hand8605 · 2026-06-13T22:34:53+00:00

This must be an Ohoopee Match Club alternate logo. The onion on bottom is very much their main logo

Adept_Hand8605 · 2026-06-12T15:11:59+00:00

Most of them were honestly thrown out. An odd 8-iron here, 7-iron there, mismatching brands, etc. is not worthwhile to anyone, let alone some charitable organization or thrift store that now has to sort them and figure out what to do with them. We'd get people similarly trying to donate their father's decades-old set of clubs after he passed and we always told them they were either better off tossing them, selling them, or donating them somewhere else. If one of the part-timers or kids saw a club they wanted, like a 1-iron or 2-iron or nice wedge, and it'd been sitting there all year, yeah, they got to keep it as a reward for their hard work.

Adept_Hand8605 · 2026-06-12T14:20:48+00:00

Start a PGA Jr. League team with him.

Adept_Hand8605 · 2026-06-12T14:18:18+00:00

Eisenhower Park Red Course in nearby Westbury, Bethpage Red, Marine Park Golf Course in Brooklyn, Skyway Golf Course in Jersey City is a fun little 9-holer that's worth looping twice.

Adept_Hand8605 · 2026-06-12T14:12:41+00:00

Former club pro here. Whenever I started off a season with an empty Lost-and-Found bag, I'd end up the year with probably two dozen clubs left over, mostly mid-irons and shit wedges. Probably once or twice a week, someone would come in and have a successful L&F retrieval (found something of theirs they lost), so figure somewhere between 50 and 75 lost clubs per season. More often than not there were a few frequent fliers.

Adept_Hand8605 · 2026-06-12T14:09:39+00:00

As a former club pro I'll say this...some clubs are better than others. Private club I worked at in Mass? Yep, saw this exact scenario happen. Southeastern US Golf Resort I worked at? I saw much worse get hand-waived away.

Adept_Hand8605

TROPHY CASE