Typhoon I don't think it's just at your place. The courses I play around here the carts seem to run in packs no matter where the individual player's ball is. They all go to the first players ball, watch them hit, go to the next.... Sometimes they don't even go to the shortest ball first and then all come back towards the tee for the shorter ball. Driving in circles in the fairway is an unexplainable, but common phenomenon in my observation. Like you've said, it's almost as if driving the cart is more of the experience for them than the golf is. Go kart driving with shot taking thrown in for variety. I don't think walkers are all that much better in that half of them don't play ready golf. They think it is impolite not to be behind the other players in the group when they are addressing the ball for some reason and there appears to be a large segment of golfers that are taught that way from the beginning.
