Why do you ask for carts to stay in the fairways?

Often, following rainfall periods, we ask golfers to keep their carts in then fairways. This is done in hopes of limiting damage to the golf course. Except for the lowest parts of the fairways, the fairways are better drained and do not have standing water and they dry quicker than the roughs.
The photo below shows one of the may wet and standing water pockets in the roughs. This is due to the fact that the roughs are not as level as the fairways, do not have the subsurface drainage as the fairways, and they are not aerified and topdressed as much as the fairways.
The course is extremely wet today following 4 inches of rain this week as evidenced by the photos below. Notice how even foot traffic is causing visual damage to the turf.

Totally saturated soil conditions and overcast climate conditions leave little opportunity for the turf to dry.

The tracking and rutting below is why we ask carts to stay on the path on the white nine when it is wet.

Exposing the course to carts today would have resulted in hundreds of these tracked and rutted areas. These areas occurred on the white nine alone where carts we asked carts to please stay on the paths.

Notice that there are no tracks or rutting behind the cart in the fairway cut? This photo verifies our request to limit damage to the course in wet conditions. The fairways generally have better drainage than the roughs and do not hold as many pockets of water.