Two new additional eligibility criteria will be introduced for Golf Ireland’s Inter-Club competitions in 2025.
In 2025, Golf Ireland will introduce two new elements to the Handicap eligibility criteria for most inter-club competitions. These have been agreed following extensive consideration of feedback from players, clubs, team captains and Golf Ireland volunteers during the three-year review of inter-club competitions, as well as follow-up consultation conducted during the Regional AGMs in January 2024.
1. From 2025, players will require four competition scores recorded on their handicap record in the previous calendar year.
This will apply to all inter-club competitions with the following exceptions:
- AIG Men’s Senior Cup
- AIG Men’s Barton Shield
- AIG Women's Senior Cup
- Underage inter-club competitions
- Other competitions which do not use lowest H.I. in the previous calendar year (e.g. Regional Women's Challenge Cup competitions)
This means that in 2024, players must record four scores in competition to be eligible – in addition to having 20 scores on their record which have been achieved at any time since 2018 in order to have a fully developed Handicap Index. Therefore, players should check to ensure they have played in four competitions in which scores have been recorded on their handicap records. These four competition scores do not need to be part of the eight counting scores in a player’s last 20, but just need to be recorded in the year 2024.
2. For players who represent their club in an Area or Regional Final, or at a later stage of certain All-Ireland competitions, an additional recalculation of their qualifying Handicap Index for the 2025 competitions will be made based on results recorded from the Area Final stage onwards.
A full and detailed explanation of this process can be found HERE.
Background: The three-year review of inter-club competitions which Golf Ireland completed at the end of 2023 led to a series of changes to the competitions from 2024, which will be continually reviewed in the following cycle (2024-2026). However a number of issues were identified during the review just completed – without a consensus emerging on how they should be tackled – and these have been taken forward for further consideration.
One such issue was the way in which the handicap system (the WHS) was applied to inter club competitions, something that continually appeared across a range of feedback sessions and surveys, from players, clubs, team captains and Golf Ireland volunteers.
In January 2024 at the four regional AGMs Golf Ireland consulted the clubs on the concept of modifying match play formats so that scores could count for handicap purposes. While many clubs who engaged with this question understood and agreed with the need to ensure performance in inter-club competitions could be in some way reflected in player’s handicaps for inter-club competitions going forward, there was a general aversion to modifying the formats to something other than traditional match play.
As a result of this consultation, Golf Ireland’s Handicap and Championships Committees sought alternative means to address the issues identified in the review. The outcome of this is that from 2025, a range of factors will be included in the calculation of the player’s eligibility handicap index. This will apply to competitions where players have traditionally used their lowest Handicap Index for the purposes of both eligibility and playing handicap. For the vast majority (an estimated 98.4%), players will continue to use the previous criteria of lowest HI in the previous calendar year. However where a player represents their club in an area final or later stage of an inter-club competition, a recalculation of this figure will occur depending on how many matches at this stage or later they win.
Further information on how these recalculations will be made and when they will apply will follow in the autumn. While these will take a formulaic approach, they are not intended to replace the Annual Review of Handicaps which all affiliated clubs must do each year and which must apply a case-by-case approach. The other distinction between this process and the Annual Review is, of course that the former will apply to the eligibility handicap index for inter-club competitions, which is a notional figure, whereas the Annual Review concerns the player’s current Handicap Index as calculated on the basis of the best eight out of their last 20 scores.
AIG Intermediate and Minor Foursomes Competitions
In addition, following wide-ranging feedback from clubs in all four regions, Golf Ireland is making adjustments to the eligibility criteria for the AIG Women’s Intermediate Foursomes and AIG Women’s Minor Foursomes, which are aimed to make the competitions more inclusive and allow more clubs to be in a position to enter.
In summary, these changes are aimed to provide clubs with more pairing options when it comes to matching foursomes pairs to play together:
- In the Minor Foursomes, in 2024 pairs were required to be no lower than 57.0 in combined Handicap Index (when adding the two players’ lowest H.I. in the previous calendar year). This has been changed so that pairs are now required to be no lower than 51.0, but that if a pair is higher than 57.0 they must play off 57.0. Further, shots will be given within this range of 51.0 combined to 57.0 combined.
- In the Intermediate Foursomes, in 2024 pairs were required to be no lower than 34.0 in combined Handicap Index (when adding the two players’ lowest H.I. in the previous calendar year). This has been changed so that pairs are now required to be no lower than 30.0, but that if a pair is higher than 34.0 they must play off 34.0. Further, shots will be given within this range of 30.0 combined to 34.0 combined.
The full terms of competition in each case will be published in January on the Inter-Club team sheets, which as always will provide a step-by-step guide on how to calculate shots in the matches.