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- Facebook Group Brings Golfers Together
- By Sean Melia, Contributing Writer for Miami Valley Golf 

Golf_Club_Ohio“I was fed up with showing up to a golf course and waiting for a group to play with.” 

Nearly every golfer has been in Justin Coy’s shoes.  

Justin and his wife moved to Columbus from Cleveland, leaving all his golf buddies two hours north. Like every golfer, Justin needed to scratch his golfing itch, but it just wasn’t the same as a single at his local public courses. He enjoyed the camaraderie of golf, but suddenly he was spending more time with the starter and on the putting green waiting for an opening on the tee sheet. 

Then an idea struck Justin when he met up with a total stranger to exchange a golf club via an online “Buy, Sell, Trade” group on facebook.

“I decided to start a facebook group. If people could meet up to exchange clubs, why couldn’t they meet up to play golf?” Justin said.

He called it “Golf Club Ohio,” and it was established in 2016. 

On facebook the “About” section says it all: 

“The main purpose of this group is to give the opportunity to fellow golfing addicts in Ohio and get out on the course together! Feel free to post any tee times you're looking for people to join on, potential times to play together, etc.”

The club started with about 50 people, and when 16 of them met up in Zanesville for a little skins game, word spread, and more people joined the group.

It swelled to 1,000 and Justin thought it would be fun to organize a larger outing for any members that could attend. 

That first event had 64 golfers participate and they raised $800 for charity.

Suddenly, the club wasn’t just bringing people together to golf, it was helping those less fortunate. 

Justin had created more than just a place for golfers to find a game. 

In the fall of 2021, a Golf Club Ohio event raised $6,000 for Worthington Christian School’s golf team and on Monday, May 23 the club hosted it’s spring gathering to raise money for a scholarship fund in memory of a Golf Club Ohio member’s friend who recently passed away. 

Now, Golf Club Ohio has swelled to 6000 golfers from all over the state. 

Golf Club Ohio has one requirement: you have to live in Ohio. That’s not for the sake of exclusivity, the mission of the group is to have Ohio-based golfers meet and play golf together. 

The range of ages is also wide. Justin told one story of a group from Ohio Golf Club that played in an event together as a group. One player was in his 20s, another in his 30s, another in his 40s, and another in his 50s. They were strangers before the event but had formed the team through Golf Club Ohio. 

As the group has grown, members have taken trips together, and the content on the site has evolved to include birthday wishes, friendly competition, and opinions on courses both in and outside of Ohio.

Over the summer, there is also a big match-play event that includes 124 people. It’s a $20 buy-in. The money is donated to a charity, which is picked by the five members of the OGC board. 

“It’s wild to see how it’s grown over time. And the interest is incredible,” Justin said. 

Of course, like any group on social media, some moderation is needed. Justin and the facebook group moderators make sure that discussions are respectful and don’t veer down the roads of politics or other topics worth avoiding at the dinner table.

He did admit he has had to ask people to leave the group, either for infractions on the golf course, like cheating, or for breaking the community rules on the facebook page. 

Those are few and far between, however, and the club is driven by a love of golf, competition, fun, and charity. 

In 2020, Justin and the group started a Ryder Cup style event, which includes a live facebook draft and celebrity captains. 40 players participate over the course of the two-day event. Justin has another Ryder Cup event slated for this fall. 

Justin Coy channeled his frustration into something positive and filled a void in many golfer’s lives. Members have taken road trips together, attended Cleveland Guardian baseball games, slept on each other’s couches, and even been members of each other’s wedding parties. 

Golf is a game that can bring people together, and Justin Coy has done it the right way.

Now, finding a game of golf isn’t so hard.

 Sean_Profile_Photo_Trans
Sean Melia is a regular contributor to Miami Valley Golf and podcaster and writer for 
AmateurGolf.com. He played competitively in college and still tries his hand at competing every now and then, but he is usually snapping pictures of interesting holes he's playing instead of worrying too much about his score. He is currently on a quest to play all 350 golf courses in his home state of Massachusetts and chronicling it on Instagram BayState_Golf and his website 
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