How much should I tip? It's always been one of golf's most vexing questions—until now. Here's a guide to slipping the right amounts to the right people

Golf Digest, August, 2004 by Bob Carney

LIKE ANYONE I'VE EVER KNOWN who's worked in oil derivatives, my friend Justin Wilson is retiring young. For a fellow who's lived half his life with a phone in each ear, however, his recent trips to breathtaking golf destinations have been less than pacific.

"I hate having to walk around a fancy resort with a pocketful of bills," says Wilson, a transplanted Brit who can sell you 15,000 barrels 20 years from now at Thursday's price per barrel but can't decipher American tipping practices. "It's like paying $250 for your green fee and having to pay for range balls, for heaven's sake. Inevitably, I've got only a $100 bill. What do you say, 'Would you happen to have 95 singles?' Can't they just charge me upfront and let me be?!"

A former professional cricketer, Wilson brings a de Tocquevillian perspective to our golf culture. The disclaimer here is that his position in cricket was Silly Mid On, which is akin to playing third base while standing about 10 feet from the batter. Thus, his judgment is not airtight. But he can put his finger on it, if you know what I mean.

"At my club in Connecticut you give a caddie $45 a bag and he's happy," he says. "At my friend's club in New York, 20 miles away, you give the kid $45 and he looks as though you've peed on his shoes. [A British expression, apparently.] Can't somebody just tell me what to pay?"

Now, Wilson is a very generous fellow. But like a lot of people who have enough money, it annoys him to have to worry about it all the time. To him and many golfers we talked to, American golf is a series of people with their hands out, punctuated by the occasional gap wedge. The parking valet. The kid who puts your bag on a cart. The starter. The caddiemaster. The caddie, forecaddie or cart-caddie. The cart girl or geezer. The club cleaner. The locker-room attendant. The kid who takes your clubs to the bag drop. The kid who puts your clubs in your trunk. The guy who directs you to the nearest ATM. And so on.

By the time you've weathered this gantlet, you've handed a couple of dozen bills to a half-dozen strangers and feel that you almost certainly did it wrong. You gave one of them a five when you wanted to give him a buck (it was all you had) and promised another, "I'll get you on the way out." His expression was somewhere south of "Gee, thanks."

Tipping is golf's equivalent of a public radio fund drive; at a certain point, you'd pay anything to make it go away. Its pervasiveness "leads to people being offended," says Guy Shutt, a financial adviser from South Africa, now living in the States. "They feel taken advantage of." Like a lot of folks we talked to, Shutt would gladly pay a flat fee for service--$30 a day, say--upfront and not have to try to understand our tipping customs, outstretched hand by outstretched hand. No surprise, then, that places such as Augusta National and Pine Valley ban tipping altogether. Violating that rule, by the way, not only messes up the system but can get an employee who accepts a tip fired. So don't do it.

"Questions of tipping bedevil people, particularly because the custom seems to spread like a liquid spill," says Letitia Baldrige, author of Letitia Baldrige's New Manners for New Times. "The proper amount changes constantly." Baldrige is the expert. Reassuring, eh?

"Tipping is not like table manners," says Lydia Ramsey (Manners That Sell), who writes a weekly column on business etiquette for The Savannah Morning News and once took up golf but--out of courtesy to her instructor, she says--gave it up. "No one sits you down and says, 'This is how you do it.' "

Ramsey empathizes with the panicked traveler who confronts one shuttle driver, valet, bellhop, bag-stand boy or locker-room attendant after another. "People begin to think, 'This is getting into some real money now. What's this costing me?' But the fact is, everyone who provides a service has the expectation that they'll be compensated, and they should be. People should be rewarded."

In short, they all get something. The accompanying box recommends tips for practically everything, based on advice from Ramsey, Baldrige, caddies, limo drivers, skycaps and golfers. Some of you (read: New Yorkers) may be surprised at how low the amounts are. But our interviews indicate that if you tip consistently, not extravagantly, you'll be way ahead of the crowd. And don't feel guilty about asking for $15 change on a $20 bill. From their point of view, it sure beats stiffing them.

Ask Garry Lang, a retired plastics salesman who now cleans and racks clubs at the PGA Golf Club in Port St. Lucie, Fla., for $2.20 an hour, golf privileges and tips. "I'd say 60 percent of the people give us a buck," says Lang. "About 15 percent are generous; maybe they give $2 to $5. The rest give nothing." Shockingly, Lang reports that he and his crew would be thrilled if they averaged $1 a cart. In a five-hour shift, his team services 240 carts and shares $150 in tips "on a good day." Many service personnel pool tips this way. If you miss one of them in the morning, you can double up in the afternoon and not worry that you've stiffed someone.