Diary Of A Secret Club Golfer: Are Trophies Treated With The Respect They Deserve?

I am a member of a golf club which has many competitions that are competed for annually. The trophies themselves are in a glass cabinet in a corner of the clubhouse bar.

This cabinet is not large and the trophies are many in number. The result is that the assorted silverware and other awards are rammed in higgledy piggledy. They are certainly not presented to great effect, or remotely attractively.

Indeed, it is hard often to discern which trophy is which, and what some of those awards stuffed in at the back are remain a mystery to almost everyone who peers into the contents of the trophy cabinet.

Moreover, these trophies never move from where they have been rammed in. They are never taken out of the cabinet and they were never presented. But they were competed for, and the competitions that bear their name have honours boards dotted around the clubhouse.

But the trophies themselves seem an irrelevance. I can't recall a prize presentation for any of them. I won one once, many years ago – to this day I have no idea what it looks like and I've never actually had the chance to hold or touch it.

The secretary once explained that the club’s insurance policy dictated the trophies could never leave the clubhouse. Even so, it seemed odd that the club could, or would, not arrange a prizegiving.

What is the point?

The trophy could have been presented inside the clubhouse and members and other prizewinners gathered around could have given a hearty round of applause.

The proud winner could have had their photograph taken with the gleaming prize for the monthly newsletter, their family album or whatever... and then the trophy could then have been taken off them and shoved back in the cabinet.

Otherwise what is the point of the actual trophy itself?

Our club got burgled recently – one of the dozens of such burglaries across golf clubs in England. The trophy cabinet was smashed and all the trophies were stolen.

The club is now waiting to get the insurance money for these losses. But what should the club do with this money?

Should the club buy replica or replacement trophies to shove back into another cabinet just to be ignored once again?

Should the club put the money away in a separate account which is used to buy some cheaper trophies, such as a tankard or shield, which can be inscribed and presented for the winner to keep – something they can take home and proudly put on their mantelpiece to show off to visitors?

Or will this money at our proprietary club just get quietly subsumed into the facility's general income?

Does your club treat trophies with more reverance and respect or is it a similar story? Let me know in the comments below...