Bags, carts and trolleys: how you carry the clubs.

Four types of bag

Retailer Haggin Oaks describes four main types of golf bag. The weights are its figures, and other retailers give different ones (see below).

The weight figures differ between retailers. A BirdieBall guide puts stand bags at 3 to 7 pounds and cart bags at about 6 to 8 pounds, against Haggin Oaks' 5 and 5 to 7. Check the listed weight of the bag itself rather than relying on its category.

Whatever bag you use, Rule 4.1b of the 2023 Rules of Golf, in effect from 1 January 2023, limits you to 14 clubs; see clubs explained.

Caddies and who carries what

• Rule 10.3a(1): a player may have only one caddie at a time. Someone who carries only items such as a rain suit, umbrella, food or drink is not your caddie, unless you name them as one or they also carry or handle your clubs.
• Rule 10.3b(1): a caddie may always carry, transport and handle your clubs and other equipment, including driving a cart or pulling a trolley.

Riding: Model Local Rule G-6

Rule 4.3 allows a Committee to restrict motorised transport by Local Rule. Model Local Rule G-6 lets a Committee prohibit players from riding on motorised transport, such as golf carts, during a round unless authorised. The penalty is the general penalty for each hole where the breach happened, and a breach between holes applies to the next hole. It applies only when a Committee adopts it.

G-6 was updated on 1 January 2026. Its purpose statement now says a Committee may approve, after the fact, a ride that a player accepted by mistake but reasonably, for example believing the driver was authorised to offer it. Committees can also make exceptions, such as organised rides between a green and a distant next tee.

Walking versus riding: one small study

A study led by Dr Prakash Jayabalan of the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab and Northwestern Medicine was presented on 28 April 2018 at the Osteoarthritis Research Society International meeting. Fifteen golfers, ten of them with knee osteoarthritis, played 18 holes walking and, on another day, riding a cart. The researchers reported that walkers spent over 60 percent of the round at a moderate-intensity heart rate, against about 30 percent for riders, with no meaningful difference in pain or markers of cartilage stress. They said riding still gives some cardiovascular benefit.

That was a small study presented at a conference, and our sources do not include a published paper, so treat it as an early result. Questions about your own joints or heart belong to a doctor.

Cart safety

Researchers at Nationwide Children's Hospital's Center for Injury Research and Policy, using US Consumer Product Safety Commission emergency-department data, estimated about 148,000 golf-cart-related injuries in the United States from 1990 to 2006, with the number rising 132 percent over the period. The study appeared in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine in 2008. It found that:

• more than 30 percent of the injuries involved children under 16;
• falling or jumping from the cart was the most common cause at every age;
• more than 70 percent happened at sports or recreation facilities.

Carts are also no protection from lightning. The US National Weather Service's toolkit for golf facilities says plainly that golf carts are not lightning-safe vehicles. See weather gear for what the NWS and other bodies say about storms on the course.

Before you play somewhere new, check whether the course or competition restricts carts. Model Local Rule G-6 applies only where a Committee has adopted it.