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Awards Archive · Est. 2019

Three Ceremonies. Eighty-Four Thousand Votes. The Internet's Only Peer-Run Golf Awards.

The Online Golf Forum Awards are the longest-running community-voted recognition in golf. Every other year, members of The Golf Lounges Forum nominate, debate, and vote on the gear, courses, and clubhouse stories that actually moved them — no sponsor ballots, no editor picks, no corporate shortlists.

Founded in 2019 and staged again in 2021 and 2023, the awards have grown into the only golf prize decided entirely by the people who play the game. The 2025 ballot opens to registered members this autumn.

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  • 84,000+Community votes cast across three ceremonies
  • 3Ceremonies held since 2019
  • $0Sponsor money involved, ever
  • 14Categories judged per cycle

The Three Ceremonies

One scroll. Three years. Pick the chapter you care about.

2019Inaugural

The First Ceremony — when "community-voted" was still a radical idea

Twelve categories, four weeks of nominations, and a final five-day member vote. The 2019 awards set the format we still use: open nominations, peer voting, no sponsor-curated shortlist. Drivers, irons, and putters dominated the talking points; the Funniest Clubhouse Story category broke out of the gate hard.

Total votes
22,140
Categories
12
Members voting
9,400
Headline winner
Best Driver Launch — Callaway Epic Flash
Read the 2019 winners ›
2021Mid-pandemic

The Ceremony Where the Forum Spent the Whole Month Arguing About Ball Speed

The 2021 cycle ran during peak home-simulator obsession: WITB Builds doubled as launch-monitor threads, and the new Best Sim Setup category nearly overran the board. Course reviews surged back as tee times returned, and the Top Public Course Under $75 bracket got its first repeat-winner controversy.

Total votes
28,860
Categories
13
Members voting
12,100
Headline winner
Best WITB Build — Titleist TSi3 bag, low-handicap class
Read the 2021 winners ›
2023Most voted

The Ceremony That Made 84,000+ the Number Everyone Quotes

By 2023 the awards had settled into a rhythm the community trusted. A two-week nomination window, a two-week community vote, and a moderation log published the week after. Sixteen categories, the addition of a Left-Handed WITB bracket, and the first verified-photo course review tiebreaker in forum history.

Total votes
33,400
Categories
16
Members voting
14,200
Headline winner
Top Public Course Under $75 — Pacific Dunes (Oregon)
Read the 2023 winners ›

By The Numbers

The receipts behind 84,000+ community votes.

84,000+ Community votes cast across the 2019, 2021, and 2023 ceremonies combined.
35,700 Registered members who actually cast a ballot in at least one ceremony.
41 Categories judged across all three awards, from Best Driver to Funniest Clubhouse Story.
$0 Outside sponsorship or ad money involved. Member-funded through the $24 lifetime tier since 2016.
6 Years running. Next ceremony: 2025.
41 Volunteer LPA-certified moderators running ballot integrity.
$68,000 Masters Pool prize purse from the 2024 fantasy major linked to the awards.

How The Ballot Works

No sponsor money. No editor picks. No manufactured shortlists.

The Online Golf Forum Awards run on a four-stage community process that has not changed meaningfully since 2019. Here is exactly how a category goes from open nominations to a published winner.

  1. 01

    Open nominations — two weeks

    Any registered member in good standing can nominate a product, course, or member story in any open category. Nominations are posted as public threads so the community can argue the case before voting opens.

  2. 02

    Shortlist lock & integrity pass

    The volunteer LPA-certified moderation team reviews every nomination for verifiable claims — confirmed launch dates, verified course play, photo proof where applicable — and locks the final shortlist before voting opens.

  3. 03

    Community vote — two weeks

    Every registered member gets one ballot per category. The form is hosted on our self-hosted forum stack with zero third-party trackers. Duplicate and ballot-stuffing attempts are filtered by the mod team within 48 hours.

  4. 04

    Results post & moderation log

    Winners are announced on a pinned awards thread and archived in this section. A moderation log — including disqualifications, tiebreakers, and total votes per category — is published within seven days of each ceremony closing.

"The awards are just the forum in concentrated form — a member-funded, peer-voted, volunteer-moderated record of what the actual players in the actual forums actually thought."

From the 2023 post-ceremony moderation log, archived on the awards sub-forum.

Next Ballot: Autumn 2025

Get registered before the 2025 nominations open.

The only way to nominate and vote in the next Online Golf Forum Awards is to be a registered member of The Golf Lounges Forum. Membership is a one-time $24, lifetime, no recurring fees, no ad tracking, no data resale. The ballot thread opens to members four weeks before public nominations close.

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  • $24 lifetime — no monthly fee, ever
  • Self-hosted platform, zero third-party trackers
  • Moderated by 41 LPA-certified scratch golfers
  • Ballot eligibility begins the moment you register