Golf Society Prizes That Won't End Up in a Drawer

Here's how I'd think about splitting the prize table, what works for the booby prize, and roughly what to spend on each slot.

The categories you actually need

Most society days end up with the same spread of prizes, give or take: overall winner, runner-up, best front nine or best back nine, nearest the pin on one or two par 3s, longest drive, and the wooden spoon. Some days throw in nearest the pin in two for extra interest, or a team prize if you're playing a Texas scramble or a better-ball format.

The mistake I see most often is spending nearly all the budget on the top two and almost nothing on the rest. The overall winner is usually a decent golfer having a decent day; they'll be chuffed with a modest trophy and a sleeve of balls. The person who's going to tell the story in the bar for the next six months is whoever won nearest the pin by half an inch, or whoever took home the wooden spoon with grace. Spread the budget.

A rough budget that works

For a society day of 20 to 40 players with each person contributing to a prize kitty, something like this holds up well:

• Overall winner: £30-£50. A small engraved trophy or glass, plus a sleeve of premium balls.
• Runner-up and category winners (best front/back nine, team prize): £15-£25 each.
• Nearest the pin and longest drive: £10-£20 each. A single, specific thing beats a generic voucher every time.
• Wooden spoon / booby prize: £10-£20. Yes, really. More on this in a moment.

If you're doing it on a shoestring, you can halve all of the above and it still works, as long as you don't fall into the trap of giving the winner a Mars bar and calling it a joke. There's a difference between cheap-and-funny and cheap-and-couldn't-be-bothered.

What makes a good nearest-the-pin or longest-drive prize

These are won in a single moment, often by someone who isn't in contention overall, so the prize should feel like a genuine little trophy of that one shot. The best ones are specific to golf and useful enough to actually get used. A nice pitch repairer with a ball marker. A decent single glove in the right hand. A dozen of the exact ball the winner plays, if you know (ask the organiser's WhatsApp group beforehand - it takes two minutes).

Avoid gift vouchers for the pro shop unless the day is at the winner's home club. A voucher for a course they'll never visit again is just admin.

The wooden spoon is the hardest prize to get right

This is the one everyone overthinks. The whole point of a booby prize is that the person who wins it has already had a rough day, and the gift needs to make them laugh rather than feel worse. The test I use: would the winner put this on their desk at work, or would they quietly leave it in the car?

A few things that tend to work:

It has to be about golf, specifically. A generic funny mug about Mondays doesn't land. Something that nods at the particular misery of golf - lost balls, early tee times, the ball that absolutely definitely wasn't yours - will. A mug or print that just says Not lost. Just rehomed. tends to get a laugh from everyone at the presentation, not just the recipient, which is what you want.

It should be keepable. Mugs, prints and t-shirts work because they live somewhere visible. A novelty item that's funny for ten seconds and useless after that goes in the bin by Tuesday. If you're giving the booby prize to someone who's been getting up at silly o'clock to practise all summer and still finished last, something like Alarm set for 5am. Voluntarily. acknowledges the effort as well as the result, which softens the blow.

It shouldn't punch down. There's a line between gentle ribbing and making someone the butt of the joke. The best booby prizes send up the sport itself, not the player. Anything that reads as 'you were rubbish' is going to feel mean, even if everyone laughs in the moment. Anything that reads as 'golf is ridiculous and we all know it' lands with the whole room.

A note on the 'honesty' prize

Some societies run a prize for the player who clearly didn't quite play the ball as it lay, or who found a ball in the rough that bore a suspicious resemblance to the one they'd just hooked out of bounds. If your group has that kind of humour, a mug along the lines of No way is that MINE! tends to go down well. Only do this if you're sure the recipient will take it in the spirit intended. If in doubt, skip it.

Presentation matters more than cost

One last thing. However much or little you've spent, wrap the prizes. Even a bit of brown paper and string. Handing someone a mug in a Tesco bag at the bar after their round is not the same as presenting it properly after dinner with a short, slightly embarrassing speech about how they earned it. The ceremony is half the gift. The other half is choosing something they'll actually want to keep.