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Disabled Dilemma
By Peter Blais
Excerpted from GolfBusinessMagazine.com, August 2005 - http://www.golfbusinessmagazine.com/pageview.asp?doc=1345
The golf industry and federal regulations take up the debate of providing better customer service at America’s golf course.
If there is a hot-button issue among golf course owners involving the Americans with Disabilities Act, it is the ongoing federal Department of Justice (DOJ) deliberations on whether to require courses to provide accessible or single-rider golf cars to make facilities more usable by people with disabilities.
Advocacy groups for those with disabilities and some manufacturers believe that the Justice Department will eventually require course owners to provide single-rider vehicles (which cost roughly twice as much as standard double-rider cars for top-of-the-line models) or some type of accessible golf car. Besides providing more freedom for golfers to swing the club from a sitting position, proponents claim these new vehicles can drive on greens and other sensitive areas of the course where heavier traditional golf cars are too heavy, allowing golfers with disabilities the option of playing the entire round from their seats.
“There is no doubt the DOJ will require courses to provide some sort of accessible device,” said Gary Robb, executive director of the National Center on Accessibility (NCA). “The DOJ may or may not require all courses to purchase an accessible golf car. I believe they will require courses to have an accessible device available for people with disabilities. That might mean pooling among golf courses or some other option. I doubt the DOJ will specify exactly what that means or what the device looks like, but probably state something to the effect that it must be able to be independently accessed [on and off] and independently operated so it provides an effective means by which people with mobility impairments can play the game.”
While wanting to accommodate those with disabilities, many golf-industry groups and course owners oppose mandates to purchase single-rider cars for reasons involving the effectiveness of the vehicles in accommodating those with various disabilities, product demand, economic burden/return on investment, safety and risk management.
LPGA teaching pro Noel Jablonski has taught golfers with disabilities for the past 15 years and operates Every Body Golfs School, which contracts with four Fairfax (Va.) County Parks Authority golf facilities, all of which have single-rider cars. “A single-rider car will not damage the putting surface [if used properly],” she said. “There is a responsibility by players not to turn while on the green. If they have to approach the putt from a different way they have to drive off the green and then come back on.
The ADA yardstick for determining whether course owners need to undertake something to make their facility more accessible is whether the action is “readily achievable,” said attorney Jack Wilson, a partner with Brown McCarroll, a Dallas law firm that has represented numerous courses in ADA cases. “But how do you define ‘readily achievable’? In essence, it is something that is not real expensive. But when you read what will be taken into account, it makes just about everything ‘readily achievable’ because you have to take into account all the assets of the owner at that facility.”
Pretekin offered this financial analysis. “According to the National Golf Foundation, the average golf course revenue is $1.2 million per year. Based on that, a course could acquire one of our cars on a lease for one cent for every $5 in revenue. No judge in this country could consider that an undue economic burden. For a smaller course that is not making a lot of money, the IRS has come up with a tax credit of 50 percent to acquire a golf car for accessibility. They can expense the car during that first year to the point where an $8,000 car will cost about $2,800.”
One possible alternative to requiring every course to purchase its own single-rider car would be allowing a number of courses to purchase several cars and form a pool allowing each facility to use them on an as-needed basis
“Pooling is not a good idea,” Yates said. “When a course is already short on staff, having someone trailer the cart across town is not very cost-effective. The disabled person should have the same ability as a regular person to make a tee time [for tomorrow] and have the cart there tomorrow.”
Asked what his advice would be to course owners at this point in time, the USGA’s Holland said, “The message is that owners would be doing the right thing by accommodating individuals as best they can. If everybody tries to be as accommodating as possible and not get the cart before the horse, let’s just see what the regulations are as we go through the process.”
Peter Blais is a freelance writer based in Maine.
Excerpted from GolfBusiness Magazine.com
August 2005- http://www.golfbusinessmagazine.com/pageview.asp?doc=1345