FORT WORTH -- At Hawks Creek Golf Club west of downtown, you'll find all the usual sights and sounds of the game plus one you'd never imagine.
The course is the only one in Fort Worth to offer GolfBoards, unique personal golf carts that look more like surfboards than any traditional vehicle.
They're battery-powered, with straps on the front to hold a golf bag and a cooler in the back. Riders lean with their body weight to steer and control the speed with a thumb switch.
"We say, after a couple holes, you got it down, and by 19, you're an expert and ready to go for the next round," said Tony Collins, the pro for Hawks Creek.
Collins said his course is the first public course in Texas to offer GolfBoards. Their fleet of 13 are available for anyone who comes to play, with a cost of an additional $20 over usual green fees. He said since they debuted at the course, some 445 golfers have taken them for a ride.
"We've found fifty percent of the time that people are playing Hawks Creek Golf Club just because we have the GolfBoard," Collins said.
They're a novelty, but they're also designed to speed up the game. Players can ride straight to their ball, and the boards are allowed to travel to parts of the course that are off-limits to traditional carts. GolfBoard says an average round with their board takes 2 hours 40 minutes, down from the usual 4 hours.
"Anything to speed the game up, I think it's a win," said golfer Mark Smith, who tried a GolfBoard for the first time today.
