Juniors in Men’s comps

[Lwatson-jones]

Our club has the simple policy, if they hold a handicap, they can play in any club competition. Board event or not.

This years club champion was a Junior who plays of 3 (or 4).

My son just obtained his CONGU handicap of 28, and will be playing as soon as possible, in club events. Knowing members of my club, he will be welcomed and encouraged.

I don't agree with much segregation, and think PEOPLE should be able to play together. Men, Ladies, Juniors and Seniors should be able to sign up to a competition if the conditions of that particular competition allow it.

On the flip side, I do see the want of individual sections of a club having their own competitions.

The key here is BALANCE.

 

[The Autumn Wind]

The ladies however were not happy that their scratch champs was won by a 14 year old off 3 - so have brought restrictions in that means she won’t be able to play in it next year

That's a disgusting attitude and decision by the ladies at our club. They should be welcoming such a talented young golfer as Georgia, not shunning the poor girl. I'm genuinely appalled by their attitude, it just smacks of bitterness and jealousy.

 

[RollinThunder]

I was a junior member at an old club, but the junior section was pretty-much non-existent. I paid a reduced rate (a tenth of the full annual membership fee), but could enter adults competitions with no limitations whatsoever.

To be fair, the club as an institution was very positive towards young members. They clearly saw the need in getting more young people into the club, hence the reduced rates. I'm sure the scratch team consisted mostly of juniors. There seemed to be two extremes, i.e juniors were either scratch golfers or they played-off 28. There was no in-between. The mediocre juniors like myself never did any damage, and the decent ones were too busy playing for the county or the scratch comps. And if the decent juniors entered the club championships they were always up against a good few adults of equal or better standard, so it was just a case of the better man winning.

However, individual attitudes towards juniors entering adult competitions was a different matter. There was quite a lot of in-fighting within the club between the young and old. It started-off when younger, working members complained that they couldn't get a round at the weekend because older, retired members were booking well in advance on the online booking system. Older members replied with the "We've played at 9:00 every Saturday morning for the last 15 years, we're not changing now...", and it went from there. A load of younger members left because they couldn't get a round at the weekend, and a load of older members left because they thought they'd been disrespected when the club tried to address it.

Some individual attitudes to juniors playing in men's competitions were very poor. There were lots of comments such as "they pay a tenth of the membership as us, but have the same chance of winning a Motocaddy...", that sort of thing. I couldn't help but thinking that Motocaddy would be worth ten times as much to that kid as it would to them, but there you go.

 

[Doon frae Troon]

Juniors at our place have handicaps off the same tees as adults and can play in nearly all the competitions. They have their own Club Championships and so cannot enter the adult one. Never occurred to me any of that was an issue - seems to work fine.

Only wish we had more juniors members !

Does that mean that a 17 year old junior member of your club who is Scottish Champion and a Walker Cup player would not be allowed to play in your club championship ?

 

[patricks148]

They are allowed to play in some of ours, but most of them seem to be low single fig anyway. I think your handicap has to be at a certain level to play comps on the Championship course, which i think is mid teens. the scratch was won a couple of year ago by a 16 year old.... but he was of +3 at the time.

 

[rudebhoy]

we had a farcical situation earlier this year where a 16yo off 9 won a competition, then at the prizegiving someone complained this was against some arcane rule. Club chairman agreed and the poor kid was disqualified. A major barney ensued which ended up with the chairman resigning.