The Case Against Cart Paths
How concrete arteries are slowly killing the walking game and what courses are doing to fight back.
Coming SoonFor the 3% Who Still Walk
Carts. Cavity backs. Soft greens. The game has been sanitized beyond recognition. Sand Iron exists for those who refuse to comply—who walk eighteen, play blades, and believe a 4-iron bump-and-run is more elegant than any flop shot.
Beliefs that will get you uninvited from 90% of member-guests. Wear them like a badge.
A cart path is a scar. The beep of a reverse alarm is an insult. You cannot know a golf course from a seat—you have to feel the contours under your feet, sense the wind shift between holes, earn the back nine with tired legs. The game is a four-hour walk with purpose. If you won't walk, you're playing a different sport.
Game improvement means hitting bad shots that look good. A blade tells you the truth: that was thin, that was heavy, that was perfect. Forgiveness breeds complacency. When you pure a muscle back 5-iron into a tucked pin, you've earned something that no super game improvement club can replicate—honesty about your ability.
When every approach holds, you've eliminated half the game. The pitch that checks, the lag putt from the fringe, the creative punch under wind—these shots don't exist on dart boards. Firm and fast rewards strategy. It punishes the lazy swing. It remembers what golf was before agronomists decided to help the developers sell condos.
Compare any course built after 1970 to Pine Valley, Oakmont, or Merion. One group moves dirt to manufacture difficulty. The other found it in the land. Tillinghast, Mackenzie, Ross—they walked the property for months before lifting a shovel. Today's architects walk it with GPS and a budget for waterfalls. The difference is permanent.
"The object of a bunker or trap is not only to punish a physical mistake, to punish lack of control, but also to punish pride and egotism."
— Charles Blair Macdonald
The courses that define what golf should be
George Crump's masterwork remains the ultimate test. Every hole a painting, every shot a decision. No weak holes, no cheap birdies, no mercy.
Crump & Colt, 1918Henry Fownes built a course of pure difficulty. The church pew bunkers, the greens like glass, the unwavering commitment to challenge.
H.C. Fownes, 1903Tillinghast's tilted greens and strategic bunkering create a course where par is always a good score. Precision over power.
A.W. Tillinghast, 1923The Lower Course stands as a monument to classic American golf. Demanding, fair, and eternally relevant.
A.W. Tillinghast, 1922How concrete arteries are slowly killing the walking game and what courses are doing to fight back.
Coming SoonThe counterintuitive argument for playing clubs that actually teach you something.
Coming SoonA guide to the courses that still mandate what the game was always meant to be.
Coming SoonEvery week, one essay on what golf got wrong—and what the few remaining purists are doing about it. Plus: first access to drops (48hr head start), course intel you won't find on review sites, and the occasional rant about cart paths.
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