SKATEBOARDERS and golfers may not normally have much in common, but a US entrepreneur hopes to appeal to both sporting types with a new device that lets you "surf" the fairways.
The GolfBoard, demonstrated at a recent charity event in California, looks like a large motorised skateboard but can comfortably carry a golfer and his clubs around 18 holes, according to its makers.
The innovative device aims to replace the golf cart as the smart way to get around a course, speeding up the game and offering players a snowboard-style work out in between playing shots.
"It will do for golfing what snowboarding did for skiing," said Don Wildman, a 80-year-old fitness club founder and Malibu resident who came up with the idea, giving a stark assessment of golf's current appeal.
"It's an old man's sport. I know if I had kids, they would really like to come out and play golf if they got to ride around on... an electric skateboard," he said in the clubhouse of the Malibu Country Club.
Paul Hodge, who heads the company that makes the device, is even more blunt.
"If you really want the industry to grow, and to be accepted by the mass market, you need to kill that stodgy conservative attitude... and you need to make it fun... and attract the younger crowds," he said.
"Forward-thinking people in the golf industry right now realise you can't focus on what was the game like 100 years ago. You need to focus on, what's the game going to be like in the future?"
The board, 38cm wide with 9cm wide tyres, can ride up to 36 holes without a recharge.
It is designed so that, even for a heavy golfer weighing more than 110kg on a very hilly course, it can go at least 18 holes.
It can reach speeds of up to 19km/h, roughly the equivalent of a golf cart.
Not everyone is convinced, even though the device has yet to be widely available for people to test out.
"This is at best a gimmick, and I can't think of a single course I play at which would even allow such a thing on the course," said one user of online golf forum thesandtrap.com.
"Their liability insurance policies alone would prohibit it," he said, while another commented: "I'm not sure where you come from, but in NY most people can barely manage to get on an escalator without killing themselves and others."
But Hodge said he already has orders for 2000 GolfBoards, and mass production of the devices - which retail at $3500 ($A3920) each - will begin in January, with a capacity of 1000 a month.
"Now we're moving to mass manufacturing to fill the demand that we've created," he said.
The target users are aged 15-40, he said. "But we've had a surprising interest from golfers much older than that. The standup (handle) bar that we've added makes it easy for anybody to ride .. that's really opened up the demographic.
"So you don't need to have a really strong athletic background to be able to ride it but it's certainly more challenging when you take the bar off."
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