The idea was born in 1996. Following the example of other sports, golf also wanted to have an evening where players, officials and supporters of the sport, which started to grow significantly after 1990, could come together. On Saturday, the public will learn the names of the best Czech golfers for the twenty-sixth time.

This gala evening will also include the presentation of the Czech Greenkeepers Association award. This year the Czech University of Agriculture in Prague was awarded for its cooperation in the education of greenkeepers. The award was received by the Rector of the Czech University of Life Sciences in Prague, prof. Ing. Petr Sklenička, CSc. and on behalf of the CSG the award was presented by the secretary of the association Ing. Karel Kubata, Ph.D.

In 1996, the gala evening was actually held for the first time, the present name was adopted from the following year.
“The promoter Petr Žák came up with the idea to organize a similar event. The idea appealed to both myself and the then President Goldscheider and soon became a tradition,” recalled Karel Vopička, the then President of the STK, about the birth of the event.

Petr Žák, with the help of his partner (Eurotel), first organized the premiere meeting, which was a celebration of Czech golf, but still without the accompanying polls. Instead, the Czech premiere of the famous golf film Green World (Tin Cup in the original) was screened during the evening.

“And from the following year onwards, we created a joint evening with the announcement of the best in a number of amateur categories. At first everything took place in the Blaník Cinema, later we changed other Prague halls,” added Vopička, who for many years compiled the script of the Evening of Czech Golf.

Golf lasted in the Blaník Cinema with a one-year break (2008 in the Municipal House) until 2012. Since then, the venue has changed several times. In 2013 – 2015, the golf fame moved to the Prague Congress Centre, followed by three editions in the Erpet Centre in Smíchov (2016 – 2018).

Since 2019, the Czech Golf Federation has been using the services of the Slovanský Dom, but only the first edition was held in front of a packed hall. Last year, due to the epidemic situation, the Evening of Czech Golf had to be redirected and subsequently broadcast on the Czech Golf Channel; unfortunately, this year the situation will be repeated.

The announcement of the best Czech golfers for the year 2021 will be shown in the premiere on Saturday 18 December at 18:00 again on the Golf Channel.

The first ever best amateur golfer was Miroslav Holub in 1997, and since 1998 a separate category for female golfers (Petra Kvidová) has also been announced.

The list of winners includes mostly later successful professionals, whose category has been part of the award since 2019 (Klára Spilková and Stanislav Matuš). A year ago, amateurs Jiří Zuska and Denisa Vodičková and professionals Klára Spilková and Ondřej Lieser were awarded.

Since the second year, the evening also included the presentation of the Annual Awards. Since 2020, new members have been inducted into the ČGF Hall of Fame, which already has thirty “residents” starting with Hanus Goldscheider (2000) to Zdeněk Klan (2019).

Petr Halaburda