Short, and mostly
about handicaps.

The Richard Lambe Memorial Trophy goes to the player with the highest total from their best three Stableford rounds of the season. Play more than three and only the best three count, so a bad day never costs you anything except the day and the round of drinks.

Level on points, the better single round goes above, then the next. That's habit rather than law, and the committee has the last word, usually from a bar stool.

Everyone plays off a society handicap, used in society events only. If you hold an official handicap, a World Handicap System index through a club or England Golf's iGolf, you start on that, and the society handicap then moves on its own, but never more than three above your index. New members without one are given a handicap by the handicap committee, capped at 20 to start and 28 at most.

Where a handicap clearly doesn't match how someone's playing, and we all know who we mean, the committee can step in. It can also bend these rules in unusual circumstances, which is any Friday.

Cards

• Every card must be marked and signed by both the player and a marker.
• The marker should be a society member or hold an official handicap. If nobody in the group does, the committee reviews the card.
• Hand in at least three cards a year to keep your handicap. Miss that and you start again with three fresh ones, and no, your mate's word doesn't count.

The constitution says our objects are to encourage golf, and drinking, amongst friends and their guests through regular competitions, and to give a handicap to those without one. In that order. Membership is for friends of The Hassocks; anyone else needs the committee's say-so and a good reason.

We play to the Rules of Golf and the Rules of Amateur Status as laid down by the R&A, and recognise England Golf as the governing body for the amateur game. Local rules, where a course has them, apply.

We're guests everywhere we play. Their rules and their etiquette come first, whatever you think of the dress code.

Committee

A committee drawn from the members runs things, and doubles as the handicap committee, which explains a lot. There's no annual general meeting; any member can call an extraordinary one, though nobody has. If the society is ever wound up, what's left in the kitty goes over the bar.

Captain

Chris Lambe

Secretary

Nick Watson

Treasurer

Keith Rogers

Handicap secretary

To be confirmed

The full constitution is with the secretary and is being brought up to date, slowly. It still says CONGU where it means the World Handicap System, which replaced it in 2020.