Today, I received this email from Golf Canada:

"Importance Notice About Your Golf Canada Score Centre Account. In 2015, Golf Canada and the Provincial Golf Associations created the free Bronze level membership, to accompany the Gold level membership. After four years of research and evaluation, a decision has been made to continue with only one membership level, Golf Canada Gold. We wish to inform you that, as of January 15, 2019, the Bronze level of membership has been discontinued. Your membership account and scoring history has NOT be deleted, however, to maintain access you will be required to upgrade/renew your membership at the Gold level. Over 150,000 golfers are already enjoying the many benefits of Gold membership. Log in to your existing Golf Canada Score Centre account at golfcanada.ca and follow the prompts to renew your membership and upgrade to Gold! If your Golf Canada membership is paid through a golf club, please contact the club to have the account reactivated."

As someone who has been in the industry for a long time, I can't say that I'm surprised. I have to admit, I was more than a little confused when Golf Canada and its provincial counterparts rolled out the 3 levels of membership in 2015; bronze, silver, and gold. They have emphasized the term "every golfer" through their push of this new membership model over the past four years. he hope was to be more inclusive, and, in turn, the national governing body gains a clearer view of the participants in its sport. I thought it was an odd business decision - surely decreasing revenue from previous "Gold" memberships (they didn't have a name back then since it was the only membership available). Personally, I knew several people who only paid for the old membership to get an idea of what their handicap factor was, because they had no other means of obtaining it. Or, their golf club membership just included it. Very few golfers need an official handicap factor to compete, so I would imagine they lost a large percentage of paying members to the free Bronze membership when it was rolled out. Alas, the free Bronze membership is no longer, and once again, we must pay if we want to know our handicap factor. You can get your Gold membership at golfcanada.ca. Do you keep track of your scores? Will you be getting a Gold membership in 2019? Why or why not?