Mainstreet Radio’s Leif Enger reports on digitally-mapped, electronically monitored, pushbutton GPS golf. The latest lure for the golf-obsessed is satellite technology, global positioning to be exact. But at least one golf purist is not impressed.
Golf courses are proliferating around Minnesota. There are now at least 450 statewide; 70 new courses have opened in the past five years alone. Such growth begets an inevitable battle for patrons, with courses promoting low fees, or natural beauty, or nearby attractions.
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LEIF ENGER: The pressing issue on the second hole of the Legacy course is the sand trap. Can it be cleared from the tee?
STEVE OGREN: From here, if you want to take a shortcut to the green, you have to go right over that trap.
LEIF ENGER: A decision this big requires accurate information. Steve Ogren taps a computer screen built into the golf cart and up pops a color map of the hole, with precise distances enumerated from the cart to the pin to the green and to the loathsome sand.
STEVE OGREN: So if you feel you can hit it 190 in the air, then that's the line you should take. If you know you can't hit it 190 in the air, take the longer route.
LEIF ENGER: We won't learn today whether Ogren can hit it 190 in the air. He's not golfing. He's working, acquainting newcomers to the course's latest gadget, a Global Positioning System, GPS, in every cart. The Legacy is one of just two courses in the state with GPS. The other is at Izatys Resort, south of Lake Mille Lacs.
STEVE OGREN: As we're driving here, a satellite that's orbiting the Earth is tracking our golf cart. It measures the distance from the transmitter in the cart to a coordinate that's punched in for the pin. You're being watched at all times.
LEIF ENGER: The Legacy is a brand-new course, part of Cragun's Resort on Gull Lake near Brainerd. It has 100 carts outfitted with GPS at $4,000 a piece, an enormous investment. But in an area crawling with new courses, Ogren says satellite gear is one way to burst from the pack.
STEVE OGREN: There's always people from the old school that like the purity of the game. But I think that's the minority. The majority of the people absolutely love stuff like this.
LEIF ENGER: These machines, after all, do much more than measure distance. Say, you're hungry. The clubhouse menu appears magically at the ninth tee. Push a button, order a sandwich. Or say, your heart gives out. Push a button, and a medic trundles right out with a defibrillator. Or say, you're just in a hurry. The GPS gives you a discreet way to rat on the overly hesitant.
STEVE OGREN: The people ahead of you are taking a long time. And you're waiting on every tee. And you'd like a ranger to come out and talk to them. This will send a message back to the pro shop. And they'll send somebody out to see what the problem is.
LEIF ENGER: But isn't golf supposed to be a game of tradition, of garrulous, status-quo duffers, like George Nye, vacationing from Florida. He looks like a duffer.
GEORGE NYE: I'm 80 years old with one leg. When you have played golf as long as I have, and when you get as old as I have, tradition is not as important as having all the aids you can have.
LEIF ENGER: Then let's try Bud Risser, sitting on the clubhouse deck, chewing a brat. Looks traditional enough, his name's Bud, after all.
BUD RISSER: Well, I like being able to order lunch from the cart. I mean, it sounds like a strange thing. But it actually is useful.
LEIF ENGER: As it turns out, just about everyone here this afternoon thinks GPS golf is the best innovation since they quit stuffing the ball with feathers. But a story like this one demands a curmudgeon. And ours is Ian Ferguson, a Scotsman transplanted to the Twin Cities.
The Scots, as you may have heard, invented golf in the mid-15th century, playing it so fanatically, King James II banned it outright. His royal archers were neglecting their bows and arrows. Later, it was banned again by an English invader, worried the game was an expression of rebellious nationalism.
IAN FERGUSON: We play the game with a passion. We are very much into anything that can improve the game. But I draw the line at the gadgets.
LEIF ENGER: Like golf carts, for example. Ferguson is against carts. Asked about GPS, Ferguson hints at a dark use for his 5 iron. He says golf is best pursued with sticks and a bag, nothing else.
IAN FERGUSON: It's very much, I believe, a personal thing, the human spirit against the elements and against the greens and against your own psyche as it happens on the day.
LEIF ENGER: In Scotland, Ferguson says the golf course is hallowed ground, despite being home to the occasional sheep. His experiences on American courses have been marred by golfers with cell phones and erupting pagers, which brings up GPS again. What could be handier than sending an electronic message, asking the loafers up front to move it along?
IAN FERGUSON: The easiest thing to do is to actually speak to them. It may be novel. I don't think they need to be paged. I don't think we need to send them an email. I think it's really simple to say, could you speed up your game, or let us play through?
LEIF ENGER: Golf curmudgeon Ian Ferguson. A representative of the GPS company employed at the legacy issued a dare to Ferguson, challenging him to play around with the equipment at the risk of enjoying himself. Ferguson says he's up for it. Seldom has a denizen of the Glaswegian hamlet of Coatbridge dodged a dare. No date for the event has been set as yet. Leif Enger, Minnesota Public Radio.