EVEN WITH DAILY DOSES OF TLC from the maintenance staff, a well-used golf cart can put a dent in an otherwise delightful round. Happily, golfers at The Resort at Pelican Hill® never have and never will encounter such obstacles. In fact, every guest who heads to the first tee of either the North Course or the South Course these days is handed the keys to one of 160 new, state-of-the-art electric carts.
Acquired in late 2017, the Club Car Precedent i3 carts come with premium leather seating; soft-grip cushioning on the steering wheel; built-in club and ball cleaners and coolers; storage for valuables; hinged windshields; and USB ports to power up phones, tablets and speakers. While the smooth ride pampers occupants, proprietary Visage-driven touch screens get down to business, displaying distances to pins and hazards to within a yard.
“That’s key, because we rotate between nine pin placements, so target yardages are always changing,” says Rob Ford, general manager of golf operations at Pelican Hill.® “The system automatically updates and keeps track. It shows precisely how far you hit your tee shots. The touch screen provides distances to anywhere on the course. Maybe best of all, the graphics show undulations in the terrain of both fairways and greens.”
While dyed-in-the-wool duffers might look askance at these technological “perks,” Ford believes that the game must innovate in order to prosper in a society that places a premium on time efficiency and readily accessible entertainment.
