Society of the Month – February 2024
The Law Society Golf Club (LSGC)
Year Founded
1962
Geographic Area you play most
The Club comprises members from throughout England and Wales and whilst a significant proportion of our day matches are centred around London the “International” matches and meetings have been all over England and Wales: Alnmouth to Trevose, Seascale to Deal and Ipswich to Aberdovey.
Annual Tour
We do not have an annual tour as the central feature of LSGC is the matches.
Every 3 years we have a week-long team Championship.
The most recent ones have been at Palmares, Lagos, Portugal and involved teams of lawyers from England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Ireland, France and Ontario.
We play these teams as well as Holland, Belgium and Germany in annual matches so travel to their countries in alternate years.
Pictures below from Palmares
Formats
We have 2 meetings a year which are a mix of foursomes and singles scored as stablefords.
The other events are matches played, mainly, as either foursomes or fourball matches.
The ‘International’ matches involve 3 or 4 rounds of golf over 2, sometimes 3, days and are played against lawyers.
The day matches are all centred in England and Wales and played against various golf societies and professional organisations.
We are hoping to add to the number of day matches with the possibility of playing at weekends and not necessarily alternate shot golf.
How Many golfers
We have 130 members and the matches are anything from 8 to 12 a side.
Why did it start
A group of like-minded solicitors met and agreed to play meetings. Quickly thereafter matches were added.
How do you select which courses to play
We tend to look for courses with good reputations, likely Top 100/200 rankings.
Several are ones that we return to annually such as New Zealand, Huntercombe and Pulborough with others being ones at which we have members so examples are Luffenham Health, Royal Lytham & St Annes, Little Aston and Deal.
Favourite Course played with Society
In 2023, for me personally, it would be Hillside, just ahead of Royal Lytham and Woking.
We have played at some wonderful golf courses in Europe and Canada.
Top Tips for running a golf society
(1) You will not please everybody
(2) Be patient
(3) Do not take it too seriously.
3 reasons to join the Society
(1) It is a good way of getting to play some very interesting golf courses and not just in the UK
(2) For a lot of members it is the only opportunity to play matchplay team golf
(3) It is fun!
Club Membership Split
Virtually all our members are members of golf clubs although that is not a criteria for membership.
We look for those qualified as solicitors – be they in practice or retired and those training as solicitors.
Mental/Physical Health benefits
Particularly for those in work it has to be the chance to get out with people of a similar work background and interest in golf.
Charity
We do not have any direct charitable involvement although have promoted and supported some pet projects of individual members.
Final Thoughts
We are a friendly group with a good spread of members in terms of where they live, ages and work types and size of business.
Although the Club is centred on matches the competition is not serious and the essentials are fun and socialising.
We are keen to see new members especially if they can hit the golf ball the sort of distances that some of our European opponents now manage!
But absolutely everyone is welcome – this is not a Club focused on only low handicap golfers.
Click to join
Gallery
