Eligibility Criteria

Eligibility Guidelines

  • All active golf courses are eligible to submit for the awards, but the golf course must be located in the UK or Ireland

  • All submissions should be made by an employee or authorised representative of the relevant golf course/company

  • All golf courses should upload their submissions document using the online portal

All submissions should primarily make reference to initiatives, developments or activity that took place or were completed between September 1st 2023 and August 31st 2024. However, judges will also consider ongoing activity, or activity that was completed within the last five years as part of a bank of evidence.

Category-Specific Eligibility Guidelines

Emerging Course of the Year

  • The course must have been opened or established after the year 2000.

Short Course of the Year

  • All par 3 courses, 9 hole courses are eligible, as well as short courses of 18 holes or otherwise that are either less than a par 70 or under 6,000 yards.

Practice Facility of the Year

  • Eligible facilities include golf practice facilities, indoor and outdoor golf simulator venues, driving ranges or instruction centres. 

  • Entrants do not need to be affiliated to an official golf club in order to be eligible.

Redesign of the Year

  • The redesign must have been completed and opened between July 1st 2023 and June 31st 2024.

  • Eligible redesigns can be based on a particular feature, a single hole or the full course layout. All restorative, ecological, strategic or accessibility-based redesigns are eligible, but redesigns to amenities or clubhouses that do not interact with the playing environment are not eligible.

Additional Guidelines

  • If, for any reason, a category is withdrawn ahead of the finalists announcement, you will be refunded your submission fee or reallocated to an alternative category if deemed appropriate; however, a refund will not be issued if you have submitted to additional categories, regardless of whether you make it through as a finalist.

  • For golf courses that reach the finalists stage, we may ask for additional evidence or ask further questions to better assess your submission. At this point, we will also outline the confirmation procedure for the finalist stage. 

  • All participating golf courses should be prepared to allocate a small number of tee times to GCA judges, should they be announced as a finalist. However, while a judge may decide to visit a course to support their personal interpretation of a course’s submission or to distinguish between two leading contenders, their personal experiences will not be a key element of the panel’s deliberations.