# Do I have a false memory of golf-cart driving?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-i-have-a-false-memory-of-golf-cart-driving/510502>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [September 17, 2009, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-i-have-a-false-memory-of-golf-cart-driving/510502 "2009-09-17T21:16:43Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\
**Post date:** [September 17, 2009, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-i-have-a-false-memory-of-golf-cart-driving/510502/1 "2009-09-17T21:16:43Z")

</div>

I spent a lot of time on a golf course as a kid because my parents owned one. I loved the times when I got to drive a golf cart around the course and (I am ashamed to admit) it was even more fun to drive through the sand traps.  
I was talking with a coworker about driving golf carts, and I said how the ones we had on the course didn’t have a steering wheel exactly. It had a steering column with a loop of metal tubing that you moved right to left.

It also didn’t have a lever or anything to go into reverse. If you turned the column all the way to one direction (I don’t remember which), it clicked over into reverse.

Is my memory fantastical? I can’t find pictures or any reason the steering would have been that way.

This would have been late 70s, early 80s.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![RedSwinglineOne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a9adbd/32.png) [@RedSwinglineOne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RedSwinglineOne)\
**Post date:** [September 17, 2009, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-i-have-a-false-memory-of-golf-cart-driving/510502/2 "2009-09-17T22:12:22Z")

</div>

I’ve seen carts like that. The tiller steering you describe can be useful because the tiller is in the center and the cart can be steered from either seat. It usually steers a single, powered front wheel. You go in reverse by turning the tiller so far either left or right that the front wheel is basically pointing backward.

Think bumper cars.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![eveanyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a88e4f/32.png) [@eveanyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eveanyn)\
**Post date:** [September 17, 2009, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-i-have-a-false-memory-of-golf-cart-driving/510502/3 "2009-09-17T22:53:58Z")

</div>

That’s the way I remember them in the early 80’s too. My dad used to let me drive them as long as he was right next to me to make sure I behaved myself.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\
**Post date:** [September 18, 2009, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-i-have-a-false-memory-of-golf-cart-driving/510502/4 "2009-09-18T00:14:09Z")

</div>

Cool. I started to think I invented it.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Donovan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ea666f/32.png) [@Donovan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Donovan)\
**Post date:** [September 18, 2009, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-i-have-a-false-memory-of-golf-cart-driving/510502/5 "2009-09-18T00:34:31Z")

</div>

The golf course down the street from where I grew up had some, here’s a picture of one… always was slightly amused that Harley Davidson made golf carts, dunno if they still do.

[http://www.jconradmedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/harley\_cart-300x220.jpg](http://www.jconradmedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/harley_cart-300x220.jpg)

_edited because I can’t spell ‘the’_