Walk or ride? It’s one of golf’s eternal questions. Are you looking for comfort or cardio? Do you want speed or simplicity? How hot is it? How steep is it? Do you have blisters from your new spikes? It’s a tough conundrum, but one Japanese golf course has put a big tick in the “walk” column with this galaxy brain innovation:
Golf escalators.
Japanese golf is an eclectic mix of honored traditions and modern ingenuity.
Yokohama is a super hilly course and is extremely hot in the summer. How do you keep it a walking course and not have people drop dead?
Here’s a cool feature on 2 of the big hills: pic.twitter.com/Y75Zdx8kYI
— Rick Golfs (@Top100Rick) August 21, 2023
That video comes courtesy of @Top100Rick on Twitter. He’s currently on a Far East golf adventure and posted this video after his round at a hilly Yokohoma-area course on Monday. It quickly grabbed the imagination of golfers across the Western world, who were dumbfounded to learn that a) this is a thing and, b) we haven’t been doing it all along.
Of course, we’ve all seen these at our local airports as we curse the people who step aboard and then stand there blocking the entire walkway while you’re trying to get to your gate on time, but we’ve never seen one at a golf course. More than that, we’d never even imagined it until today. Now we’ll never get it out of our heads. Every hill, every modest incline and slight undulation, will now be a torment – a reminder that Japan continues to thrive in the future while we’re stuck in Australia suffering in the past.
