Easiest way to get a GUI handicap

I'm not sure where you are based but Deerpark in Howth you can join for €200 and submit three cards and you'll get your GUI handicap. It's pay as you play so it's €27 a round.

I know there used to be a rule that you had to compete in 3 singles qualifying competitions at your home club the previous year to play in Open Comps. Your initial handicap covers the first year but then you may have to go back to keep it active.

This is not needed anymore.

Start off with 3 cards at your home club to get a handicap, but then you never have to play your home club again if you so wish.

With the increase in subs in most clubs this could appeal to a lot of golfers, especially those who might not get out that often to justify paying full membership

It obviously will not be popular on the forum or in particular golf club members...( I predict) .

But if I ignored that..there is a logic for any association to make access to their sport cheap and to grow its base.

Basically what every other sport does..

I'm a member of Cycling Ireland and a GAA club ..but I'm a complete outsider and of casual involvement.

But debate will be very different (interesting) here .

Whilst we talk about opening up golf and we have been tested with WHS ...if the truth be known...we have a very interesting, passionate and local culture in golf in Ireland.

I wouldn't exactly be against it. Think it provides a pathway for people taking up the game to eventually become members of a club

I'd be for it. Membership in my home club has gone up and up and up and up constantly and I know factually that the value in it is gone for me now

I'd be happier with something like this and just playing Open Comps. I assume Clubs would probably increase their Green Fee Rates and Open Comp Visitor Rates to balance things slightly but f it. My home club among all of the price increases has put in stuff that hasn't benefitted the club one bit - A new putting green which nobody uses; they changed up the Driving Range slightly which has made no difference; and bunkers on the course are getting worse and worse.

I feel like my Membership fee isn't getting put to proper use. Less than 13 holes open 6+ months of the year (I know that's not their fault obviously)

I think it's a great idea. A lower barrier to entry to the sport is always a good idea in my opinion. I don't see too many people who are currently a member of a club leaving and getting this instead. Certainly active members given that they would then have to pay a green fee any time they actually want to pay. It is maybe part of a wider conversation but I think golf as sport needs to evolve quickly and I would see this as a good first step.

Whilst I get the idea of trying to open up golf to more people, I think it would be an appalling decision to open it up to Club Opens.

I think I'd be of the opinion that, it's generally fine to introduce, but you should be paying 100% club rack-rates. You shouldn't be getting the benefit of discounted open rates. Or you could play opens, but at a significant premium relative to club members.

Smacks of just selfish individualism. I want the benefit of club golf without paying for the privilege.

This will potentially cripple many clubs I would say, so could be counter productive. Only the big clubs might be able to financially support a big drop in memberships.

Going by how it is implemented in England and Scotland, then it would be up to each club to set their own terms of competitions for opens. I have seen examples of clubs barring entries from members of the independent scheme and other cases where they are allowed play but not win a prize.

How many members do you think would actually leave a club to do this unless they were close to leaving anyway for financial or other reasons?

I agree with your main point though and if it resulted in higher open fees for those who pay a full sub, I'd be pretty annoyed. I'm surprised at how little opens I've played anyway since joining my current club.

Very few if any opens are on weekends and the extra travel just makes the time commitment too long generally. The price of opens have crept up too with not a lot of value to be had anymore. We played a team comp in MJ in February for €75 a head and it wasn't worth that considering the time of year and course condition, their next one is €85 and although I'm sure course conditions will be better I doubt it's worth it.

Course maintenance is expensive though and I'd hate to see courses have to close due membership erosion though a measure like this. The alternative angle as has already been mentioned, what if someone near a country club wants to play a bit, but doesn't really know how to go about it or is unsure about forking out for membership.

They do this for a year, realised how much they enjoy golf and would love to be able to nip out in the evening for some practice or a few holes and they then join their local club.

The research has to be done first though and if it's a net positive for golf club membership then I guess we should go along with it. There will always be freeloaders with every system unfortunately.

Despite all the issues with my home club as alluded to by @callaway92 i would not like to see igolf develop as a concept.

To me it shows Golf Ireland is not interested in clubs but increasing the numbers playing at the expense of clubs.

There are many and varied ways of joining a club that has its roots in the community and delivers a service and creates direct and indirect local employment.

As pointed out already most clubs are member owned and run professionally by amateurs who love the game.

This to me would cost clubs by lower membership numbers leading to increased fees costing more members to leave eventually making clubs that already operate on a shoestring unviable and closing.

Lower number of clubs leads to increased fees for those that survive the cull, a strain on resources including the course itself by increase in use leading to increased fees in order to keep the course in decent condition.

And who would police this independent handicap?..nobody leading to yet more 28 and 30 handicappers who can play off scratch when it suits them winning finals of open competitions.

If Golf Ireland insist in forcing this through the only option for clubs is to have one fee for members of a golf club in opens and an extortionate much much higher fee for holders of an igolf handicap.

Something like 10 times the norm would sort this out.

Clubs are under enough pressure as it is and offer so much more than just a handicap.Something like this needs to be stamped out or it will be the death knell for a lot of local clubs imo.

Where are the figures to show there are more club golfers in england than ever?

Those in england that use igolf are they ex members of golf clubs or not?

Who polices the igolf handicaps in england?

My gut reaction wuld have been totally against this, but I guess it'll be one of those things where the proof will be in the pudding. Who know whether it will go one way, and attract more people to join clubs, or the other way, and see members leaving. Personally I think the latter, but would love to be wrong. You see so many people nowadays viewing their golf sub more and more like a gym membership, rather than buying into the "club" thing. Obviously everyone has to make their decision based on their own situation, but even in my own club, which is as far from a wealthy, big size operation as you can get, I've heard chats about the fee divided by the number of games you get etc etc. Granted the very wet last 8/9 months hasn't helped of course. Guys are realising that, bar links courses, the inland golf season in Ireland is really only about 6 months, maybe 7, and wondering why they're paying €xxx, when you could play an open a week from April to September for half that if you had a handicap.

For me, the issue with access to golf is as much about how long a round takes as it is with cost. There's always cheap golf to be had somewhere. And I don't mean the slow play debate, I mean that its, at best, half a day gone at a weekend. People are under pressure at home, the partner wants you to be there to do x,y,z, or spend time with the kids or him/her etc - nothing bad about that at all, it just makes heading out for 6/7 hours on a Saturday/Sunday much more difficult. Even if golf was free, he/she might only be allowed to play golf once a month, so a membership is never going to be worth it. That's not ever going to change. Its like having a hilly course in the mountains, all the money in the world isn't going to make it flat and 500 feet lower.

The other thing, and I guess this would be location dependent, is if a club is seeing members leaving and/or seeing that opens are bringing in some revenue to offset that, could you see clubs running opens every day of the week and alienating existing members ?

I dunno, I can see both sides of it, and not 100% sure what I think of it really. Waiting lists are back with a lot of clubs in the last year or two, local clubs I know of have literally doubled their joining fees so some clubs are clearly not struggling to get members. They're hardly going to notice this, and they're hardly going want or need to put on extra opens to cater for these new golfers. Its the clubs operating on a shoestring and with volunteer work from the members that I can see being hurt from this. If you can't get into a "top" club purely because there's a waiting list, the problem isn't access, there's still clubs to join.

Oh right..I presumed..wrongly obviously..that as you made statements of fact you would have checked your facts beforehand and have the info handy.

Silly me for thinking people get their facts right before stating something.

😂😂😂😂😂

i can read the facts myself, you can too, unless you are still being spoon fed

have you any facts yourself

There are a few contradictory things here. If winter is a write off then you cannot play once every 2 weeks to get your 25 rounds a year. Anecdotally I genuinely don't think 25 rounds a year is low end based on myself and my friend group. If you are a member of a club you can see the end of year figures and decide if the club are "rip off merchants" or not. My yearly sub to a member owned club is over the 1500 mentioned but I can see the costs in the end of year acccounts and I don't see it as a rip off.

When you look at the gap between the people who played golf last year and the number who are members of clubs, you can't deny that there's a huge amount of people that have an interest in the game. If there was a membership option that would suit them, they might get more involved. Which would only be good for our game.

I strongly feel that the traditional membership model doesn't best serve an enormous portion of the golfers in the country. The basic model used to be that you would pay a fairly hefty entrance fee to join a club, followed by fairly reasonable annual fees (assuming you're playing once a week). Back in the day, people settled down a lot younger than they do now. And they tended to settle into their careers far younger - a job for life was what most people looked for, so if you got into a bank or the civil service that was probably your career for life. And it follows on from there that even with a hefty joining fee, you could probably justify it because you're probably going to be in that club for life, so it's an upfront payment, but a cost you can spread over 40 years. Now, people are settling down later. In their 20s, I'd say most people aren't sure where they'll end up living for their lives, so paying a joining fee anywhere would be utterly daft. The result of this is that people of that age, even when they don't have kids so might have a bit more time, don't join a club because it just doesn't make sense for them. Then with modern life, things are expensive and there are more demands on your time than ever before. When I was growing up, my mother looked after the 4 kids (6 in summer) and got the dinner ready on a Sunday while my father played golf. Golfers getting agreement from their partners for that every week now is far less common. So even if a club isn't looking for a joining fee, it can still be hard to justify the membership fee.

The more casual golfers - people playing 12-15 times per year. I'd say most people here would have serious reservations about paying the annual subs if it was costing you €100 per round. You can look at it whatever way you like about what was available to you as opposed to what you used in the club, but if that's how often you're playing, maybe being a member of a club isn't a good idea for you with the current membership options available.

Now in fairness, there are more membership options available to people now than there were in the past - namely 5 day and pay and play in some courses, or 9 hole memberships. 5 days are an absolute waste of money if you work Monday to Friday and pay and play and 9 hole might not be available to you close to where you live. There are a hell of a lot of people like this and they're being missed by Golf Ireland. Will this new type of membership hoover up these guys? Probably not in my view. They still won't be able to play anywhere on a Sunday. A lot of people don't care about handicaps or competitions. It'll get a fair few people I'm sure, but I don't think golf clubs will notice the couple of members that they might lose to this.

Where there is some potential for this is tying in with societies. I wonder would it attract some of the more serious golf society guys out there. Societies can get fairly serious and some people would like to have a proper handicap. This could be the route for them.

But where I think there's an opportunity for golf clubs is offering different types of membership options to people. There are already guys leaving clubs every year because they play once a month and feel like they're subsidising the guys who play twice a week. And in fairness, they are. Clubs should be looking at how they're serving these guys. It's all well and good saying that it's their own fault for not using the membership more, but when you lose their subs the next year that's no good to you. I thought Castleknock had a great idea a few years ago when you had the option of buying credits (I don't know if they still offer it). The club got €1,500 in per member and it could be used for green fees, in the pro shop or in the bar. Towards the end of the year, if the member had hardly used it, I suspect some went in and bought a new driver or the like. They come out feeling like their membership wasn't wasted and the club gets the revenue.

But the fact that there are more people who played a round last year that weren't members of a club than were just shows me that there's a massive opportunity for golf in Ireland.

Once a week half the year is 25

Don't believe that is really enforced…

It would be so easy to rig as well… Even you Kerry Club don't care as long as they get three rounds from a club and it is proper…