Don Ardell's comments on a recent Wall Street Journal article about how the game of golf is being adapted to suit sedentary, overweight Americans and keep them that way.

Golf Is Hazardous to Your Health

t a course near Orlando, FL, golfers are met at their cars and transported to the carts that take them around the course. Staff members also get the golfers alcoholic drinks, clean their clubs and stack their golf balls. Are golfers outraged at this pampering and assault on their chances to get a bit of exercise? Hardly. One said he loved it, adding, "You don't have to lift a finger."

Course club managers are "dumbing down" or flattening out their courses in order to make the little amount of walking still permitted on or around their courses even easier to manage. That is to say, they are making it all the MORE difficult to get a little exercise. Bunkers have been removed or leveled, and extra caddie persons look for balls that have been "shanked." This is called making courses "player-friendly," says one club executive. It also makes the courses fat friendly, as caloric activity is removed from the only recreational pursuit practiced by many of the participants. Players are encouraged to use cart communication systems (i.e., cart phones) to place orders so that refreshments (hot dogs, drinks and so on) will be ready for them when they are lifted out of their carts. The few golfers who WANT to walk the course must pay from $5 to $15 more for the privilege.

One study showed that more than 90 percent of golfers (in South Florida) use carts exclusively; some golf managers go so far as to provide mechanized cups that lift a golfer's ball out of the hole. Don't want those tubby golf cart jockeys to have to bend over, you know.

Of course, like everything else, this is about money. A Wall Street Journal article noted that developers overbuilt courses throughout the country (1,400 new courses since 1999) and that participation levels have been stagnant for three years. (Although 3 million take up the game each year, 3 million who took it up earlier quit!) Carts are now equipped with global positioning system (GPS) devices in order that monitors in the clubhouses can spot players moving too slowly, so they can be beeped and prodded to make room for additional paying customers.

To their credit, the professional golf association (USGA) has been fighting this sedentary trend toward a sport they call "cartball." They even publish a pamphlet on the virtues of walking. The WSJ story noted that the most creative of all efforts is the attempt by some developers of the sport to build and promote "walking only" courses! Imagine that.