From Golf Historical Society of Canada:

GHSC/Golf Canada Partnership Formed

It’s official! The Golf Historical Society of Canada Board of Directors and Golf Canada have agreed to establish a GHSC/Golf Canada Hickory Division – a big win-win. Golf Canada, working with our provincial associations as our national governing body for the sport, represents more than 272,000 golfers and more than 1,400 facilities.

What does this new partnership mean for you?

• A laundry list of services, discounts, plus access to the first Hickory Handicap System sanctioned by Golf Canada
• Loss/damage/breakage/theft insurance for your hickory clubs, plus a set of ID club tags
• A myriad of other benefits, listed below and at https://join.golfcanada.ca

Under this Hickory Division membership, should you snap a shaft mid-round, leave a niblick beside a green or even have a club stolen from your bag, your loss is covered with a minimum deductible. Posting your hickory scores on the new hickory handicap web-based system provides you with a formal, sanctioned hickory handicap, opening the door for all of us to participate in some fun, equitable competition. We hope this will eventually result in a regional and/or provincial Hickory Championship tournament, and we hope that once lockdown measures are gone we can arrange formal hickory Invitational and Open events on a come-one-come-all basis.

Your Board has been working behind the scenes with Golf Canada beginning early in 2021 in order to create the new Hickory Division. It now sees Golf Canada formally recognize and legitimize hickory golf in our country. As we estimate, no other golf governing body has done so. GHSC will realize significantly more exposure from this new relationship via print and online information from both partners, with hope that both the GHSC and hickory golf will grow.

If you are an existing Golf Canada member (and therefore already a member of a golf course in Ontario), then you’re paying the $50 annual fee to receive all of the benefits below re: modern golf equipment:

• Official Golf Canada handicap index, personalized golf club ID tags
• Up to $6,000 in incident protection, split to cover broken windows, automobile windshields, broken, lost or stolen clubs, broken golf carts
• Full access to Golf Canada app with GPS, advanced score/stat tracking, handicapping, social media engagement
• Up to 25% off Avis car rentals
• Up to 11% off Hilton Hotels with complimentary room upgrade
• 10% off Golf Canada merchandise
• 15% off RBC Canadian Open and CP Women’s Open tickets/packages
• Golf benefits with RBC Home and Auto Insurance
• Access to Rules of Golf seminars and online rules resources

To receive these benefits specific to your hickory golf equipment, you simply pay an additional $18.75 per year. That gets you a second set of ID tags for use on your hickory clubs, a second access code to use to sign into the Hickory Handicap system, and additional coverage for your hickory clubs for damage, breakage, theft, loss, etc.

If you are not currently a Golf Canada member, you can become a GHSC/Golf Canada Hickory Member and take advantage of all of the benefits outlined above at an annual cost of $37.50 (reduced from the $50 fee currently payable directly to Golf Canada).

Over time, as more GHSC members register to participate within this new Golf Canada Hickory Division, we fully expect to be able to work with Golf Canada and Golf Ontario outside of our own GHSC events calendar in order to offer our members sanctioned golf events across Ontario. At this point, we are only able to offer Golf Canada Hickory Division memberships to GHSC members within Ontario – where more than 90% of our members currently reside. We still need to grow our membership outside of Ontario, so hopefully this new initiative will assist in achieving that goal.

Golf Canada the GHSC are continuing discussions, and the door is wide open for growth of this strengthened relationship.