"We recently had a cart break the $3,000 sales mark for one day, which is pretty spectacular," says Bill DeGrafft, corporate food and beverage quality control manager for the PGA Tour’s 23 Tournament Players Clubs. "That’s one cart operator bringing in $3,000. How many dining room personnel do you need to generate that type of money?" DeGrafft says it’s not uncommon for beverage carts to bring in $1,000 per day at many of the TPC facilities. 

With these types of numbers, a beverage cart can quickly move from being a luxury to a necessity. "People expect it," says Sandy McLaughlin, assistant food and beverage manager at Angel Park Golf Course in Las Vegas. "But it’s a service, too." McLaughlin says the beverage cart operation at the Angel Park complex, which features two 18-hole courses, averages $8 per golfer per round. This, she says, amounts to about 30 percent of total food and beverage revenues.