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It’s hard to imagine a golf course owner or operator out there who hasn’t yet seen the image, which weeks later is still making the rounds. The one where Tiger Woods, renowned golfer and one-time face of the sport, wobbling around as he undergoes DUI sobriety tests one late night on a quiet Florida roadside.
Alcohol was not to blame for Woods’ arrest—he showed a 0.00 blood-alcohol level—but what he called “an unexpected reaction to prescribed medications.” But imagine if it had been an overindulgence, and his arrest came after leaving your golf course. It’s yet another sobering reminder of the vigilance course owners must have when serving their guests during a round.
“We train the beverage cart servers, but it really isn’t hard to track the people trying to buy mass amounts of beer,” says Justin Smith, general manager of Olde Homestead Golf Club in New Tripoli, Pennsylvania. “That staff can then tell the inside staff if anyone is coming that has been drinking heavier.”
Laws vary from state to state, and dram shop liability—a statute that can make a business selling alcohol liable for any injuries incurred by intoxicated guests—may or may not exist in different places, notes Mark Young, F&B director at Landscapes Management Company.
Young realizes the challenges the golf industry faces that other sports may not. For instance, basketball and football games can stop selling alcohol after the third quarter, while baseball can close off sales following the seventh inning. But are there any similar stipulations in place when it comes to the casual golfer out at his local muni?
“The reality is that the final 45 minutes to an hour of a game is hardly enough time for someone that has consumed excessively for the first few hours to sober up,” Young notes. “The golf business is different, as in most cases there are tee times. With that said, the beverage cart attendants should continue service throughout the day. On shotgun starts, would it really matter if the beverage service stopped with an hour left for an event?”
It should come as no surprise that prior cases against golf courses have ended with different verdicts. A Texas country club was found liable after serving a guest too much alcohol before he fatally injured a driver in a head-on crash after leaving the facility in 2008. In Ontario, 16 golf club staff members, managers and executives were charged with serving too much alcohol to three men who died in an accident after leaving the course’s restaurant in 2009.
But in 2014, a lawsuit against a Louisiana golf club was dismissed after a judge found no evidence that the facility sold a patron a sufficient amount of alcohol to make him intoxicated before he crashed his car in an accident that killed seven people.
And that same year, the Pennsylvania Superior Court upheld a ruling that an Easton country club was not liable for two deaths caused by an intoxicated guest while he drove home following his weekly golf outing five years before.
Those instances may strike fear into the heart of facilities serving alcohol. But as Young succinctly puts it, potential ramifications shouldn’t be what dictates how a golf course chooses to act.
“As a company, we realized our approach was wrong,” he explains. “We based it on consequences. Several years ago, we changed our focus to why we provide responsible alcohol serving training, and it has nothing to do with dram shop laws.
“It’s truly because we care,” Young adds. “We care about our employees, we care about our guests. We never want to have an employee serve that last drink before a guest leaves and something horrific occurs.”
Proper training, a sharp eye and dedication to safety all play their parts. But it’s a legitimate care for customers that may in fact mean the most.
—C.C.