Team Captains Information

The 2010 Christian Golf Society (CGS) Competitions will be a pairs betterball Stableford competition, played off full handicap.

The CGS was created to provide keen Christian golfers with an opportunity to play golf with their friends who do not have a Christian faith. The ‘competitive’ element is your chance to invite someone to a genuine golfing event which feels like your local club’s annual championship and will excite people’s imagination. However, the competition is not the reason for the event itself. Our events are evangelistic in their intent and we ask that each Christian who enters the competition invites a person who does not have a belief in Jesus (at the time of entry) to be their playing partner. If your playing partner becomes a Christian before the day of the Golf Cup we will still be excited to see you.

Please be assured we ensure that faith issues are handled in a way where Christians and playing partners can be comfortable – don’t worry, we will not plug you in the bunker! Our focus is on using the Christians in Sport pledge by asking you to commit to PRAY for your playing partner, PLAY your golf in a way that reflects your faith and to be ready to SAY something of the promise of Jesus when your friends ask about your Christian faith.

The hope is you will be able to build on an ongoing relationship, where your faith is known about, open and comfortable for both you and your playing partner.  If you regularly pray for your playing partner we believe at the right time, God will give you chance to share the good news of Jesus. We do not intend to try to ‘convert’ people ourselves, we are simple creating an opportunity to talk about Jesus and let God do the rest, in His time.

There will be a golfing Christian booklet in every player’s goody-bag, which will offer an extra avenue for people to follow up if they want to ask questions about Jesus, but feel uncomfortable talking to friends. We do not employ high pressure tactics on the day.  Once again we will have a special guest, who we will ask to give a talk after dinner.  Whilst that talk will touch on their Christian faith, it is intended to be a ‘sharing’ process about their life and experiences rather than an ‘alter call’.  All players are asked to stay for the meal and talk.

We have revised our rules on handicaps for 2010. We want the golfing part of the day to have genuine credibility - suggestions of banditry would reflect on our perceived integrity as Christians, undermine the evangelistic intent of the day and devalue the National Christian Golf Cup and its qualifying events.

Therefore:

· Golfers with club or validated society handicaps play off their full recognised handicap.
· Those that play regularly, but don’t have a handicap, are asked to provide copies of 3 or more recent scorecards which reflect their typical play and we will calculate a handicap.
· Those people who play sporadically are asked to declare what score (gross medal score) they would regard as good round of golf and we will calculate a handicap and reduce this by 4 strokes.