Ride or walk? Former tour pro’s harsh tweet ignites heated debate on Golf Twitter

By

“Are we going to ride or walk today?” It’s a question golfers constantly ask before teeing off to different results. But one former tour pro with very strong feelings on the subject doesn’t think it should be a question at all.

RELATED: Which way of playing golf leads to your best scores?

Mike Clayton is a winner on the European and Australasia Tours. He’s a golf course architect. And in recent years, he’s become one of the most-respected voices on Golf Twitter. He also just reignited an age-old debate with this tweet.

Of course, Mike is entitled to his opinion. (Even if this one involving tne thought of him potentially vomitting seems a bit harsh.) And he makes some great points.

First, walking is unquestionably better for people than riding. And, showing his position as a golf architect, walking is also unquestionably better for golf courses. But many took exception to his take.

As you can see, many of those dissenters think that we shouldn’t criticize golfers for how they want to enjoy the game. You know, the old GROW THE GAME argument. And there’s certainly merit to that as well.

As some pointed out, there are also plenty of courses that require carts due to their design or trying to raise revenue. Although in this case, Clayton was talking about a specific course that wasn’t difficult to walk and didn’t make golfers take a cart.

There were also plenty of people who sided with Clayton and thought these young men should tough it out and use their legs.

Although, even Clayton conceded one situation where walking would be acceptable:

In any event, we can see both sides of the argument. We also don’t want to keep anyhone from playing this great game that we love. In other words, “Walk or ride?” is a question that isn’t going away anytime soon.

RELATED: Seemingly innocuous photo leads to harsh blowback from Golf Twitter

This article was originally published on golfdigest.com