Writing a buggy policy for your golf club

Why the unwritten version causes the arguments

Nearly every club already has a buggy policy. It lives in the heads of the secretary, the course manager and whoever is behind the counter on a Saturday, and it holds together until all three are asked the same question and give three answers. The complaint that follows is rarely about the decision itself. It is about being told no in March after being told yes in February, by somebody who cannot say what changed.

A written policy is mostly a protection for staff. The person on the desk at eight on a wet Sunday morning should not be inventing the club's position on medical access while a four-ball waits behind them. Give them a document to point at and the conversation stops being personal. It also gives the committee something to review calmly, rather than settling a principle under pressure with an unhappy golfer in the room.

The other reason to write it down is that other people will eventually ask to see it. An insurer after an incident, a member making a formal complaint, a society organiser planning a day, or a solicitor acting for somebody who feels they were shut out of the course. A policy written in advance and applied evenly is a much better answer than a recollection of what the club usually does.

Who may drive, and on what terms

On private land there is no legal requirement to hold a driving licence to drive a buggy, so the standard that applies is the one your club sets. That freedom is the reason the section needs care. Decide a minimum age and hold to it, decide whether a licence is asked for, and decide whether visitors, guests and juniors are treated the same as members. Speak to your insurer before you settle any of it, because cover commonly carries conditions on age and supervision, and a policy that contradicts the cover is worse than no policy at all.

Then say who the vehicle is issued to. One named hirer per buggy, responsible for it until it is returned, removes most of the ambiguity about who was driving when something happened. If you allow the hirer to hand over to a playing partner, say so and say on what terms. If you do not, say that too, because silence is read as permission.

The rest of this section is the ordinary discipline of any shared vehicle: passengers seated, nobody riding on the back or the rack, keys returned rather than left in the ignition, and a clear line on alcohol that matches the one the club applies elsewhere. Add what happens when the rules are broken, because a sanction invented after the event always looks personal.

• The minimum age, and whether it differs for members and visitors.
• Whether a driving licence must be produced, and by whom.
• Whether a hirer may hand the vehicle to a playing partner.
• Who briefs a first-time driver, and what that briefing covers.
• The club's position on alcohol and on driving after a halfway house stop.
• What happens after a breach, in stages rather than a single sanction.

The access route for a golfer who cannot walk the course

This is the paragraph that decides whether the policy reads as thought through or as a set of restrictions with a hole in the middle. If the club ever limits buggy use, it needs a route by which a golfer who cannot walk the course can still play. Say who handles such requests by role, what evidence is asked for, who sees that evidence, and what the golfer can expect to happen next.

Keep the request away from the counter, because health information is sensitive and a Saturday morning queue is not the place for it. A named contact dealing with it in writing and in private is kinder and easier to apply evenly. Ask for what you need and no more: confirmation that walking the course is not possible is usually enough. Set out in advance what happens when a general restriction is in force, since that is the moment the policy is tested.

Ground conditions, and who makes that call

Separate the conditions decision from everything else in the document and give it to one role, almost always the course manager. Buggy access in poor weather is a turf judgement about whether the ground will carry a wheel and recover afterwards, and it belongs with the person responsible for the turf. A committee that reserves the decision to itself ends up making it slowly, by email, on a morning when golfers need an answer in minutes.

Write down the criteria in outline and the process in detail. The outline stops the decision looking arbitrary. The process is what actually saves you: what time the call is made, who is told, which channels carry it, whether it is reviewed later in the day, and who may vary it. Note the graded options between fully open and fully closed, because paths only, restricted holes and a cap on numbers will keep more rounds going than a straight ban does. Say plainly that the decision is not negotiable at the counter. Staff who can point at a written line hold that position much more easily than staff relying on their own authority, and members stop trying once they learn that asking twice produces the same answer.

Where buggies may go

A route section that only says keep to the paths will be ignored, because on most courses the paths do not reach the ball. Describe the actual convention you want: come off the path, cross to the ball at close to a right angle rather than running along the fairway, and rejoin. Name the places that are never driven on, and name them specifically enough that a visitor who has never played the course can follow them.

Then look at the ground rather than the plan. The places that need protecting are usually the same handful of points every season: green surrounds, the approach to a tee, the inside of a turn, a wet hollow that never dries, crossings and gateways where every vehicle passes through the same gap. Marking those and rotating the entry points is more effective than a general instruction to drive carefully. Say what happens when a buggy is driven where it should not be. A quiet word from the course manager works far better than a notice, but it works only if the same word is had with everybody, and only if the boundaries were clear before the wheel marks appeared.

• The general convention for coming off a path and rejoining it.
• Green surrounds, bunker faces and any permanently roped ground.
• Ground that changes with the season, and how a temporary restriction is marked.
• Where buggies are parked at the halfway house and at the clubhouse.

Damage, deposits and who is responsible

The workable rule is that responsibility follows the named hirer, and the way to make that stick is a condition record. A quick walk round with the hirer at issue, the same walk at return, and a note of anything found. Photographs on a phone take moments and settle arguments that would otherwise run for weeks. Without the record you are asking a member to accept your word against theirs, which is the conversation nobody wants.

Distinguish wear from damage in the document, because the line is where the disputes sit. A scuffed panel and a worn seat are the cost of running a fleet. A broken canopy, a bent frame, a flat battery from a vehicle left switched on overnight and anything driven into are a different category. Explain how a charge is worked out and who decides it, and say that a hirer will be told before anything is applied.

Incidents involving injury or a third party are not a damage matter and should not be handled as one. Give them their own short paragraph: stop, report to a named person, record what happened while it is fresh, take names, and pass it to the insurer promptly. Insurers usually expect notification within a stated period, and that period is in your policy document rather than ours.

What your insurer needs to see

Draft the policy with your broker rather than sending it to them afterwards. Cover for a club fleet commonly comes with conditions attached, and those conditions are effectively clauses of your buggy policy whether you write them down or not. Ask directly which of your intended rules the cover depends on, and what the position is on visitors, on guests driving, and on a member using a buggy in a competition.

Private buggies brought in by members are the area most often left vague. Decide whether they are permitted at all, and if they are, what you require: evidence of insurance, a condition check, agreement to the same route restrictions, and a position on where the vehicle is stored and charged on club premises. Charging arrangements matter more than clubs expect, since somebody has to be responsible for the socket, the cable and the space it happens in. None of this is legal advice and none of it substitutes for your own cover. The authoritative answer on what your club is insured for is held by your broker or insurer, and the only sensible way to get it is to ask them about your own arrangements in writing.

Publishing the policy and keeping it current

A policy nobody can find is only slightly better than no policy. Put it where a visitor will meet it before they travel rather than after they arrive, which means the public part of the website, the booking confirmation and the society pack, not only the members' area. Keep a printed copy at the counter for the conversations that happen there.

Give the document an owner, a date and a review point. Ownership usually sits with the committee that carries the course or the general committee, with the manager holding the working copy. A yearly review before the season is enough in most clubs, plus a review after any incident that the existing wording did not cover well. Record the review in the minutes, because a policy that can be shown to have been considered carries much more weight than one that simply exists. The last discipline is the hardest: apply it. Every exception granted quietly becomes the precedent somebody cites next season, and the club that does not want to explain a decision has usually just made an inconsistent one.

• A version date on the document itself, visible on every copy.
• One named owner and one named holder of the working copy.
• A fixed annual review, plus a review triggered by any incident.
• A short briefing for shop and bar staff each spring, so the answers match.

Common questions

Does a golf club have to allow buggies on the course?

There is no general obligation to keep a course open to buggies in all conditions, and closing it when the ground will not carry them is a normal turf decision. Access for a golfer who cannot walk the course is a separate question, governed by equality law, where a blanket refusal is much harder to defend than a recorded, reasoned restriction.

Can we insist members hire the club's buggies rather than bring their own?

Many clubs do, and the usual reasons are control of numbers on the course, knowing the condition of every vehicle and keeping insurance simple. It is your land and your rules. Write the position down rather than leaving it to custom, and think about how it interacts with a golfer whose own buggy is adapted to them.

Do we need to see a driving licence before issuing a buggy?

That is your decision, since no licence is legally required to drive on private land. Ask your insurer first. Some cover carries conditions on age or experience, and if it does, the requirement stops being optional. Whatever you settle on, apply it to visitors and members in the same way.

Who should own the buggy policy at a club?

In practice it works well split by role: the committee owns the document, the secretary or manager holds it and handles access requests, the course manager owns the ground conditions decision, and the professional's shop runs the day to day issuing. Put those roles in the policy rather than the names of the people currently doing them.

How do we handle a member who ignores a keep-off area?

Record what happened and speak to them directly rather than putting up a notice aimed at one person. This works only if the boundaries were published in advance and the same conversation happens with everybody. Set out the stages in the policy, starting with a word and ending with the withdrawal of buggy use, so nothing has to be improvised.

Should the buggy policy cover competition days separately?

Yes, because competition conditions can restrict transport in ways ordinary play does not, and the club may adopt model local rules published by the governing authority for the Rules of Golf. Check the current wording of anything you adopt rather than relying on memory, and state in your policy how a golfer with an access arrangement is treated on competition days.