Is There An Official Limit To Cash Prizes For Amateur Competitions? Find Out If Your Golf Club Is Breaking The Rules

Golf divides players into amateurs and professionals and which category a player is in can matter a lot. For example, some competitions are only open to amateurs. Three of the four Men's Major golf tournaments award places to amateurs based upon their achievements in the amateur game, and with the proviso that that player is still an amateur when the particular Major is run.

The definition of a professional sportsman is someone who makes money from a sport, whereas an amateur player does not. However this can lead to many grey areas. After all, most of us have probably received money from playing golf, whether in prize money, or from winning bits, or from winning non-monetary prizes which nonetheless have a monetary value such as golf equipment, food or drink, or green fees or vouchers.

Many golf clubs have an entrance fee for its competitions and some of this entrance money goes into a pot for prize money and is doled out to those who finish in the top positions. There's also often a twos competition as a part of every competition, whereby anyone who gets a hole in two shots gets a share of that particular prize pot.

Various society or charity days often have prizes not only to the overall winners but concerning other element of the day, such as nearest-the-pin or longest-drive competitions.

So how do you, and your golf club, ensure that this is not unintentionally turning you into a professional golfer? Well, the R&A have a section in their rule book about this.

An amateur is allowed to accept any prize including prize money up to a limit of £700 or US $1000 in value per competition unless the national governing body has set a lower limit. The value of non-monetary prizes are defined as "the price at which the item is generally available to purchase from a retail source at the time the prize is accepted."

However certain prizes are excluded from this. The value of the actual trophy itself is one exception. So, too, are are prizes won through competitions involving acts of golfing skill but which are not part of an actual game of golf (a “tee-to-green competition”) such as “long drive competitions, target competitions, competitions involving specific skills, trick shots and competitions that solely involve putting (unless the competition or shot is played during a tee-to-hole golf competition).” Nor do prizes won in a raffle prize or a prize draw run in conjunction with a golf event count “provided it is not being used to circumvent the prize limit.”

A prize for a hole in one is also excluded so long as it was not part of a tee-to-green competition when the hole was less than 50 yards. Neither does any money won in a wager count and nor does anything received as expenses “to compete in a subsequent stage of the same competition.”

Players cannot defer prizes to be accepted at a later date in order to maintain their amateur status in the meantime. Nor can winners ask for their prize be given to another person, such as their husband or wife, so as to get around amateur status rules. The one exception is a donation of a prize to a recognised charity as in this case the committee in charge of the competition has the power to decide whether such a donation can be allowed whereby the player still maintains amateur status.