Golf Cart Accessories: What's Worth Buying in the UK

The golf cart accessories worth buying in the UK are the ones that fight the weather: a windscreen, a proper cab enclosure for the winter months, and a breathable storage cover if the cart lives outside. Almost everything else is situational, and a couple of popular add-ons, lift kits and speed kits in particular, are best avoided by most British buyers altogether.

That's a different list from the one American forums will give you, because their problem is sun and ours is horizontal rain in February. Kit a cart out sensibly here and you might spend £500 to £2,000 on top of the vehicle. Spend it in the right order and the cart becomes a genuine year-round machine. Spend it in the wrong order and you'll own a heated seat in a vehicle you can't use between October and March.

The weather kit: what actually earns its keep

Windscreen: worth it, all year

Buy this first. At 12 mph the wind chill on an open cart is real even in June, and a folding acrylic screen kills it along with the spray off wet fairways. Screens typically run £120 to £300 fitted, they need no maintenance beyond a wipe, and they make every other comfort accessory work better. We'd call a windscreen essential rather than optional for anyone using a cart more than a few times a month.

Full cab enclosure: worth it from October to March

A proper enclosure, meaning rigid or semi-rigid doors and panels rather than a clip-on rain hood, is the accessory that changes what a cart is. With one fitted, a January estate round or a wet school run across a farm becomes perfectly pleasant. Without one, the cart hibernates for four months. The trade-offs: good enclosures cost real money, roughly £600 to £2,500 depending on the vehicle, and cheap universal kits rattle, flap and leak at the seams. Buy one made for your exact model or have it specified at order, and accept that the bargain option usually isn't one.

Heater: situational, and second in the queue

Cart heaters divide opinion because people fit them in the wrong order. In an open cart a small 48V or 12V heater is throwing warmth into a gale, and you'll barely notice it. Inside an enclosed cab the same unit works surprisingly well. So the rule is cab first, heater second. Expect £80 to £400 depending on output, and treat anything that plugs into a cigarette-lighter socket with modest expectations.

Storage and security

If you don't have a barn or garage, an outdoor storage cover is essential, full stop. A decent breathable cover keeps rain off while letting damp escape, which matters because trapped condensation corrodes terminals and rots seat foam just as effectively as rain does. Cheap tarpaulin-style covers actually make this worse. Budget £60 to £200 for a fitted breathable cover, and pair it with the basics in our guide to cart storage and security, because a cover that hides the cart from weather also hides it from casual thieves' shopping lists, but a ground anchor does the real security work.

Lights, cargo and comfort

LED light kits are worth it for more people than expect to need them. Early winter rounds, evening yard work and estate duties all happen in half-light in this country, and a proper kit with headlights and brake lights runs £100 to £350. Cargo boxes and racks are the estate owner's favourite for good reason: £150 to £500 turns a people-carrier into a properly useful load-lugger for feed bags, tools and logs. And seat covers are the cheap win of the whole list. £30 to £120 protects the most expensive trim surface on the vehicle from wet waterproofs and muddy dogs.

What to skip

Lift kits raise the ride height for off-road looks and bigger tires. On British golf courses and estates they add body roll, stress the standard axles and steering, and can void your warranty, all in exchange for ground clearance most owners never use. Speed kits carry the same warranty risk plus insurance questions, and we've covered why they're rarely the right answer separately. Golf clubs are the other trap: clip-on rain hoods look like a bargain next to enclosures, and for occasional hire-fleet use they're fine, but for a cart you own and use through winter they flap, mist up and tear within a couple of seasons. Skip the hood and save for the enclosure.

What does it all cost?

Buying new? Spec it at order instead

Here's the part the accessory catalogues won't tell you. If you're buying new rather than accessorising an existing cart, nearly everything above is better specified at the point of order: enclosures that fit properly, lights wired in from the factory, cargo decks built for the load, belts anchored correctly, all covered by one warranty instead of a vehicle warranty plus a pile of aftermarket receipts. That's how Hawke builds work, with colors, trim and equipment configured to order in the UK. It also forces the right first question, which isn't which accessories but which vehicle; our guide to choosing the right cart size is the place to start if the base spec isn't settled yet.

If we had to give one buying order for a UK owner it would be this: windscreen, storage cover, enclosure, lights, then cargo kit, with seat covers thrown in whenever. Leave the lift kit in the catalogue. And if you haven't ordered the cart yet, don't buy any of it separately; specify the lot on the build sheet and let the factory do the fitting.