There was good news for those who play a lot of golf in and around Great Britain and Ireland. As of today (13th June) you will now be able to digitally add general play scores from any affiliated golf course in England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales to count towards your Handicap Index.
Thanks to new inter-operability software, wherever you are playing in Great Britain and Ireland, you can submit scores towards your handicap record. It also means that a card can be attested by any member of an affiliated club or iGolf subscriber within the four countries.
England Golf, Golf Ireland, Scottish Golf and Wales Golf have collaborated with technology platform provider DotGolf, and this facility is now available to be put into use. DotGolf is an independent software solutions' provider and a subsidiary of Golf New Zealand. It was established in 1999 and its club management software is used by all of New Zealand’s 280 golf clubs.
"It’s fantastic to be able to provide cross-border scoring input. Although we’ve been able to manually submit scores through handicap committees, this digital function has been what golfers across GB&I have wanted and we’re delighted to be able to deliver on this," explained James Luke, England Golf’s Head of Handicapping and Course Rating.
"This means all users of the MyEG app, including iGolfers, can now pre-register their intent, play, submit and attest a general play score anywhere within GB&I and, more importantly, with any affiliated member from the other nations' golf governing body."
The news also means a lot of time-consuming work will now be saved as it's all registered via your home nation's app.
"This is pleasing news for our club handicap committees too as they won’t need to manually input scores anymore and will be able to monitor and manage their golfers through their clubs WHS platform. It’s been a robust process and, working closely with home nations’ colleagues and our technology platform provider DotGolf, we’re all very happy with the outcome.”
Scottish Golf had offered this function from the middle of July 2021, but it was then temporarily suspended last winter following their software migration.
“We are really excited to re-launch this across GB&I; we know players have missed the ability to post scores from outside of Scotland. Scottish Golf’s short-term rollback of this functionality allowed us to work collaboratively with the other home nations and bring a smooth inter-operability function back to Scottish golfers this spring," added David Kernohan, Head of VMS at Scottish Golf.
"We recognise that Scotland’s booming golf tourism industry brings many domestic tourists to our golf courses, and it was important to launch this before the height of the summer tourist season. We will now continue to work with our provider to ensure scores from outside of GB&I can also be included."
