"So in a sense, the banning of push carts at high-end courses is another price Americans pay for our lavish style of golf."

Hear, hear to John Paul Newport for trying to understand why American golfers and courses have shunned the push cart.

Trolleys—what we call pull carts or push carts in the U.S.—are de rigueur in the British Isles, where golf as we know it began. Even at the poshest private clubs over there, members happily use the contraptions to trundle their bags down the fairways, thus playing the game as it was originally intended, on foot.

In the U.S., by contrast, walking carts historically have been relegated mostly to lower-end public and municipal courses. The vast majority of upscale clubs, resorts and daily-fee courses ban them entirely, thus denying many who might enjoy walking the course from time to time the opportunity to do so. On many of these courses, only motorized carts are allowed. On others, only golfers who are fit enough to carry their own bags—a full set of clubs with bag weighs 20 pounds or more—can walk, and even then usually only during stipulated hours. Fewer than 1% of the nearly 500 million rounds played annually in the U.S. involve caddies, according to the National Golf Foundation.

But there's good news as he lists some of the prestigious clubs now allowing push carts and the advent of a cooler looking cart:

Since 1999, however, when Sun Mountain introduced its three-wheel Speed Cart, pull carts have evolved into push carts, which are a different thing altogether. These high-tech vehicles, some now with four wheels, glide easily over the terrain with the slightest touch and roll down slopes entertainingly all by themselves.