I moved to the Southland later in life and didn’t grow up in a surf culture. Living in Huntington Beach, however, makes me wonder if I would have been good at it. Except for that paddling thing, it looks like a lot of fun.
While technically not the same thing, I did recently surf some hilly terrain at Maderas Golf Club, one of eight courses in the Southland using GolfBoards as an alternative way for players to navigate the layout.
After a few holes, I started to get the hang (pun intended) of it and didn’t need to put my foot down while navigating corners as much as the first half hour or so. With all of the slopes at Maderas, it was like skipping the bunny slopes and immediately tackling the expert trails, but if I can stay upright at Maderas, flatter fairways should be a piece of cake.
Brent Duclos, a GolfBoard sales representative for Ventura and San Diego counties, thinks courses in the Southland that have or are experimenting with the boards “are just the tip of the iceberg.”
“Seeing the success neighboring courses are having, there are a lot of interested courses in offering GolfBoards,” he said. “On a modest forecast, I see more than 20 GolfBoarding courses in So Cal by the end of the year.”
Maderas general manager Michael Flickinger recently doubled the number of boards at his course from four to eight because of their popularity. To use, golfers must go online, watch a video, reserve a GolfBoard when making a tee time and pay a $25 upcharge before the round.
“It gets you to your ball faster, and it’s a lot more fun than riding in a sitting position in a cart,” Flickinger said. “It’s really the consumer who made this decision for us.”
Duclos also predicts GolfBoards following a similar trajectory to the use of golf carts in the 1950s.
“We expect in the next few years, most courses will have some sort of GolfBoard offering for their patrons,” he said. “The satisfaction rating from GolfBoarding has been amazing. An independent survey a while back reported over 70 percent of the people polled said if they had the option they’d never take a golf cart again. Really, time has been answering the concerns that most people had with GolfBoards during our first few seasons.”
Duclos knows that there will always be some type of pushback from traditionalists, just as there has been with other attempts to get people interested in the game such as FootGolf. But, with a mother who played golf at UCLA and a father who used to teach at Westlake Golf Course in Westlake Village, Duclos knows both sides of the spectrum and sees golf, as a whole, beginning to loosen up as generations pass and new technology and lifestyles move in.
“Nowadays, you see courses allowing more lenient rules around their facilities,” he said. “Of course, So Cal is the perfect place for GolfBoards, but, really, every place is a perfect place for GolfBoards. We’re in pretty much all parts of the country. I do see So Cal beginning to lead the industry trend over the next year. With an active population and our ties with board sports like surfing, skating and snowboarding, our market is poised to be the leading market in the country.”
