The monthly medal. The very word is enough to fill us with fear. But why does this traditional format of golf evoke so much dread? For many women, it’s the thought of taking double digits or more on a hole, causing their handicap to go up and up. It’s the shame of having to play three off the tee or a provisional ball to complete a hole, one or two bad holes ruining an entire round. It’s the thought that racking up a big score will spoil their playing partners’ games and hold the whole field up.
This situation happened to me playing in a medal recently. A lovely lady in my group (who I won’t name and shame) hit a poor tee shot on the second hole of our round into the gorse. She played a provisional ball, but we subsequently found her first ball in an unplayable spot with nowhere to take a penalty drop (even stroke and distance backwards wasn’t an option), so she was forced to take the walk of shame back to the tee.
(Image credit: Golf Monthly)
Guess what? She went and hit the ball straight back into the middle of that gorse bush! Rather than have to repeat the same old sorry scene again she decided to call it quits and NR. Such a shame for her so early on in our round, but she was clearly uncomfortable and conscious of the time it was taking going backwards and forwards from tee to trouble, of holding us up and the group – in fact the whole field behind and rushing.
So, I totally understand why some women, like this lady, simply say ‘no’ to playing in a medal and opt out. After all, had the lost ball occurred in a Stableford competition she could have picked up on that hole and still carried on scoring for the rest of the round, just putting that down as a no-score hole, a bad start, but not ruining her entire card.
Nonetheless, it’s always disappointing to hear of women who are perfectly capable of playing a medal choosing not to enter for fear of making a scene like the scenario above. There’s certainly a marked difference between the number of women who book to play in a Stableford or in a fun format competition versus a medal at my home club Parkstone. It’s become such a big issue that we have recently trialled a solution for women facing the predicament.
With the approval of England Golf the club has introduced a local rule that allows any woman playing in a medal to stipulate before she tees off that she wants to play the ‘score 10 maximum’ format. This means that once you’ve taken 10 shots on a hole you can pick up. It…
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