Kenda brings automotive quality tires to golf cart industry

When it comes to personal transportation vehicles, golf carts used to be all about "bling."

Think flaming decals, paint jobs, seat covers or undercar lights. And for the tires, the bigger the better.

"They'd have these aggressive looking tires on them, and that was great in the beginning because everybody liked that," said Andy Johnson, vice president of sales and marketing, product development and strategies at Kenda Tires.

Now, owners of personal golf carts are seeking something a little different.

There may still be the occasional souped-up cruiser for grabbing the mail, but as golf carts expand further into the personal vehicle sector—and are used on more paved surfaces of retirement communities or vacation resorts—drivers now are becoming more concerned about their performance.

"(Consumers) want a smoother ride, they want a quieter ride," Johnson told Rubber News, "… and they're liking to have a more automotive-style tire on these vehicles."

As the leader in the golf cart tire industry, Taiwan-based Kenda Rubber Industrial Co. decided it needed to meet this market, and so it became the first to develop a steel-belted radial tire for golf carts—the "automotive-style" alternative to the standard nylon-ply, or bias-ply, tire.

Prior to joining Kenda, Johnson started working in the golf cart industry when he was 19 years old, spending 20 years working for a golf cart company before transitioning to another company, Tomberline Automotive Group Inc., where he worked specifically in the personal transportation vehicle sector.

Johnson, who joined Kenda in 2015, had worked with the tire maker before and helped develop tires with his previous company. He had asked about developing steel-belted radial tires for golf carts, "but it was cost prohibitive for the market size at that time."

Now, Kenda has had such a tire on the market for close to six years for the golf cart industry, "and I don't know if anybody else is doing it to this day," Johnson said, noting he made a big push to add these products to Kenda's portfolio upon joining the company.

The KR20 of the Kruizer line was Kenda's first steel-belted radial tire for the golf cart industry. Following this, he said, the company would develop specific, exclusive lines for its OEMs.

Now the tire maker supplies the steel-belted tires to several major golf cart OEMs—Kenda's "big three" being Yamaha Golf-Car Co., Club Car L.L.C., and E-Z-Go of Textron Specialized Vehicles Inc.—who put them on their golf carts as standard equipment, with the Kruizer line being the most popular.

"It really makes a big difference as far as the ride," Johnson said, comparing the tire to a standard bias-ply tire.

Where the bias tire, made up of overlapping nylon belts, may offer the flexibility needed for off-road uses, the steel-belted radial offers a higher rate of consistency for off- and on-road applications, especially for personal transportation purposes.

"You get a very consistent spring rate all the way around the tire," Johnson said of a steel-belted radial. "That's where you get a much better ride."

Other benefits of the steel-belted radial tire versus nylon, he added, include better puncture resistance and reduced rolling resistance as they can run at a higher pressure—benefits seen in the automotive industry that Kenda has applied to golf carts.

"A lot of people in these retirement communities, they have not much time other than polishing their golf carts … and they've got their Mercedes-Benz sitting right next to it," he joked.

"They want that golf cart to ride just as good as that Mercedes-Benz."

Kenda, this summer, rolled out a new steel-belted radial tire, tooled for a specific customer in the personal transportation vehicle market.

Johnson, who could not disclose specifications of the tire, said the tire is exclusive to that customer and is not available for the market.

"But we're working on another one, … and that will be non-exclusive and available to other customers," he said, adding, however, that the development of this tire is still in the "very early stages."

In the golf industry, Johnson said, golf carts typically have three-tiered lives. A cart would have its "first golf cart life" through a three- to four-year lease at a private golf club. Upon the end of its lease, the cart is generally refurbished for public courses, until it ultimately transitions into either a personal transportation vehicle or general work vehicle.

Johnson said golf carts have always transitioned to personal vehicles, especially as their use started to grow in the 1990s, with about 20-percent year-over-year growth.

And as aging populations started moving into retirement villages, so did refurbished golf carts as personal transportation vehicles, with this trend taking off around 2005, he said.

But it was close to this era, however, that the golf industry "went flat" and began to decline in the U.S., resulting in a dip in golf cart manufacturing. At least until the COVID-19 pandemic hit.

According to a National Golf Foundation consumer survey, the number of golf rounds played per year had been trending downward beginning at the turn of the century until the start of the pandemic, which recovered more than 20 years of decline in about six months. In this survey, 67 percent of consumers credited their increase in play to a lack of alternative activities available.

"No travel, no ballgames, fewer office commutes. But there was golf," NGF Chief Research Officer David Lorentz said in a February report on the foundation's website.

And in 2021, he reported, the volumes of golf rounds finished ahead of 2020 by 6 percent, with 56 percent of consumers stating they were prioritizing the game more.

"Golf courses started taking off," Johnson said. And the game continues to take off, driving demand for more carts, which in turn means more tires.

Before the pandemic, Johnson said, about 85 percent of Kenda's golf cart tires went toward the golf industry and 15 percent toward the personal transportation vehicle sector.

Now, he estimated the split to be roughly 60-40 for the golf and personal vehicle industries, respectively, with both sides of the industry growing exponentially.

"The (golf cart) manufacturers literally have not been able to keep up with demand," he said.

In April, Global Kenda CEO Jimmy Yang said Kenda dominates 80 percent of the golf cart tire industry during a tour of the Kenda American Technical Center—where he also had announced the launch of the new, customer-exclusive golf cart tire.

Johnson, however, claims the company's reach is far greater.

On the OEM front for golf course fleets, he estimated Kenda dominates closer to between 95 and 98 percent, with similar numbers for the personal transportation market.

While the golf cart industry has grown the past couple years since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Johnson said he hasn't seen other leading tire companies not already in the golf industry attempting to break in.

"It's not enough volume for their space," he said, noting top ranking tire makers are more focused on the automotive industry and the transition to an EV era.

Other major golf cart tire manufacturers, he added—like Carlisle, Duro and Innova—typically focus more on aftermarket replacement tires and are much smaller companies in comparison to Kenda.

But there's no room for complacency, he added, noting that while Kenda can "hold its own" in the industry, there's always room for competition, and those competitors' strides don't go unnoticed.

"When you're at the top, you're the furthest to fall," he said.

To maintain its lead in the market, Kenda seeks ways to innovate and expand.

And one way Kenda has done this, Johnson said, caters to the "wow"-factor of a personalized golf cart that enhances the tire of the ride as opposed to the body.

"What makes a customer go 'wow' when they see (their cart) is also the rim, or the wheel the tire is mounted on," he said, noting Kenda has expanded into its aluminum and custom wheel design offerings.

"We don't just sell them a tire by itself. ...We have developed a very large offering of aluminum, custom, bling-bling wheels," he said with a smile.

So golf carts as personal transportation vehicles may not be all about the bling, but if Kenda can help it, the bling is certainly still there.