Equality During Comps

[HRC99]

At our club the ladies have paid less for their 7 day membership but don't tee off until after 11am but the new laws will stop this, According to the EGU guide to the law, the problem is that if only one lady wants to tee off at 8am then they are being discriminated against and can sue the club. The 15 or so Sunday mornings when the men play their competitions and, with a two tee start, which closes the course, will also be a real headache to sort out - glad I'm off the committee!


Chris

I don't think that's the case at all.

If your club offers a 7 day membership at a reduced rate that precludes teeing off before 11:00am, then there's nothing wrong with that so long as it is open to both men and women.

I think little will change in practice for some time. Clubs will inevitably offer a class of membership that currently reflects the ladies's rights and open it to both men and women.

So long as all classes of membership, with whatever playing rights that accrue, are open to both genders, there's no problem.

 

[bobmac]

I thought the new law came into affect on the 1st October?

 

[Fyldewhite]

At our club the ladies have paid less for their 7 day membership but don't tee off until after 11am but the new laws will stop this, According to the EGU guide to the law, the problem is that if only one lady wants to tee off at 8am then they are being discriminated against and can sue the club. The 15 or so Sunday mornings when the men play their competitions and, with a two tee start, which closes the course, will also be a real headache to sort out - glad I'm off the committee!

I'm (unfortunately) still on committee but we are (fairly!) confident that our club is relatively unaffected. However what you say above isn't technically correct.... What the law actually says is that if you offer a category of membership for a reduced price that means you can't tee off until after 11am you cannot offer this only to ladies. ie you cannot deny men the opportunity to take up that category simply because they are male. That would be discriminatory and is perhaps a good example as it's dicriminatory against men.

So, the law will not stop the current situation, it will just open up that offer to men. Personally I'd jump at the chance to pay less as I play 95% of my golf at my home club after 11am.

Of course, clubs will need to look at the possible affect on subscription income and perhaps the reduced option may not be feasible if it were open to men too ?? So it may well not continue but for different reasons. Some interesting AGM's next year I think !!

 

[DCB]

Been there , done that, got the tee shirt

We went through this around ten years ago and ended up with Ordinary Membership. We don't have five day membership, so, the ladies pay the same fees as the men and have the same membership playing and voting rights as a result.

We did have a ladies reduced membership category for the older ladies for a while, but it has probably 'died' out now.

As Fyldewhite says, Clubs probably can't afford to offer reduced membership to the gents, as there would be real problems budgeting and operating on reduced income from annual subs as there would be a take-up from quite a few older gents.

Having ladies as full Ordinary Members has not been an issue on or off the course.

 

[chrisd]

I'm (unfortunately) still on committee but we are (fairly!) confident that our club is relatively unaffected. However what you say above isn't technically correct.... What the law actually says is that if you offer a category of membership for a reduced price that means you can't tee off until after 11am you cannot offer this only to ladies. ie you cannot deny men the opportunity to take up that category simply because they are male. That would be discriminatory and is perhaps a good example as it's dicriminatory against men.

You are quite correct except our men have never been offered that opportunity and I suspect the current committee will not do so. They will insist the ladies pay the same and, probably, fudge all the other matters

Chris