Littlestone Golf Club in south east Kent has revamped its membership structure, offering lower fees in order to attract more younger members to the Championship Club and the adjacent Warren Club.
The membership redesign means that golfers between the ages of 25 to 30 will be able to join the club and play championship links for £650 (down from £1,000) and, crucially, pay no joining fee.
To encourage long-term commitment to the club, those who are members for five years or more consecutively will only pay half of the prevailing joining fee when they go to full membership at 31 years old and this can be paid across the first year of full membership. As an additional incentive, the club is also giving new members a range card with 20 credits and a free GAP Test to help with each individual’s driving distances that together are worth £100.
Membership at Littlestone Warren has become even more affordable, with a new structure that offers membership for those aged between 18 and 25 for £199, while 25-30 year olds pay £300 and those between 30 and 40 will pay £400. This gives golfers unlimited access to the Warren course and its practice facilities, plus a range ball card with 20 credits. For all membership categories, all ages are as of January 1.
At the same time, Littlestone, which will host the R&A Junior Open in July, has also increased the age limit for free junior golf membership from eight years old to a new limit of 12. This dovetails well with the work that the club does with five local junior schools in the area where the professionals offer free lessons to the under 10s and with the success that the pros have had with the Girls Golf Rocks programme and the weekly group coaching sessions and school holiday coaching weeks open to all under 18’s.
“The club and its board of directors are continually looking at ways of ensuring the stability and longevity of the club that was established back in 1888,” said Sarah Saunders, Littlestone’s Sales, Membership & Marketing Manager. “In order to attract more youngsters it was agreed that a policy of lower fees for youngsters would go a long way to achieving this aim. We’ve completely rewritten the rule book to allow young golfers to become part of the Littlestone legacy with these lower entry fees which we hope will encourage golfers looking to get back into golf or to try the game for the first time will do so with us.”
The membership announcement follows the recent news that Littlestone has become one of the first clubs to support England Golf’s Women in Golf Charter and, at the end of last year, it achieved the SafeGolf club accreditation from England Golf, becoming the very first club in Kent to do so.