Walking the Course vs Riding
For two different reasons recently I had to play golf using a riding cart and both rounds just served to remind me why walking beats riding EVERY time.
To start with, walking is way more social. In a riding cart you only ever talk properly to whoever you're sharing the cart with, and often all you're talking about is how bad their driving is.
When you're walking you get the chance to have proper conversations with everyone in your fourball about proper topics like other sports, although mainly to avoid talking about how bad your golf is...
Rhythm's a big thing too: and the rhythm of golf is perfectly matched to walking. Hit a bad shot and the time it takes you to get walk to the next one is exactly the right time you need to forget what you just did, but if you're in a riding cart you're getting to your ball way too soon and because you're still reliving the last bad the next shot's bad also.
But play a good shot and you want time to bask in the glory of it: walking gives you time to reflect slowly on how great it was, racing to it in a riding cart means you don't get that warm glow since you're straight back into trying to repeat it, which of course you never do.
And what about your surroundings? When you're walking to get the chance to take in all the views, admire the golf architecture, listen to the birds, and do what Ben Hogan told you to do: "As you walk down the fairway of life you must smell the roses". In a riding cart all you see is front windscreen of the riding cart.
Then there's just the simple logistics: you're likely sharing the cart with someone else, which means 50% of the time you're doing stuff that's nothing to do with you, it's to do with them. You end up zig-zagging across the holes, not following the route the hole's designed to take. If you're walking then 100% of your focus is on what it should be on: your own game.
For me, there's no dispute: walking golf is the best type of golf there is. Period.
Robert