Play of the day: Bubba Watson's hovercraft golf cart

Herald online

2 Apr, 2013 07:24 PM2 mins to read

Golf carts haven't changed much over the years. They look and feel the same. What if there was a way to improve the traditional golf cart concept and take away some of the limitations? That is what Bubba Watson and Oakley set out to do. They created the world's first hovercraft golf cart. Using hovercraft technology, the BW1 is able to glide over any terrain, including grass, sand, and water. Courtesy: YouTube/BubbasHover

Whether this is US Masters champion Bubba Watson's idea of an April Fool's joke or just a really great business proposition is debatable, but who wouldn't want a hovercraft golf cart?

A YouTube video of Watson promoting a hovercraft golf cart has gone viral and according to USA Today, it's real.

"Golf carts have looked the same. They've been the same. You've got to stay 30 yards from the green, you've got to stay on the cart path when it's raining," Watson says in the video titled Bubba's Hover.

"Let's have fun. Let's go through the water hazard, come off the other side right by the green, putt your ball in the hole then you can drive back across the water hazard. Who doesn't want to do that?"

The expert who features in the video is Chris Fitzgerald president of Neoteric Hovercraft Inc, on company which sells similar models for around $NZ38,000.00.

"Bubba's idea was to see if we can incorporate a hovercraft principal, that is riding on a bubble of air, to the existing golf cart," Fitzgerald, the creator of the BW1 prototype says.

"The big advantage of the hovercraft is that it has a footprint pressure of about 33 times less than the human foot so by hovering across a green you leave absolutely no trace."

We in the Herald office are not exactly sold but if it is real we're pretty sure there's a market across the rich golfing types in the Middle East and Asia.

Six times PGA Tour champion Watson might be onto a real winner.

- nzherald.co.nz