At Champions, The Gentlemen's Putting Society Keeps Golf's Soul Alive
In a golf world that often feels consumed by speed, distance and technology, there is something deeply refreshing about a group of players gathering on a practice green simply to roll putts, talk a little trash and compete for nothing more than pride.
That is part of what makes The Gentlemen's Putting Society at Champions Golf Club so compelling.
On the surface, it is a putting game. A nightly gathering. A little structure, a little strategy and, by all accounts, plenty of spicy banter. But the more you hear about it, the more it starts to feel like something bigger. It feels like the kind of thing that could only happen at a place where the game still means something beyond scorecards and status.
At Champions, it turns out, the practice green is not just a place to kill time before a round. It is its own stage.
More Than a Game on the Green
Andy Hydorn, a member at Champions and one of the voices behind the story of the group, describes the Society in a way that makes it sound both delightfully serious and gloriously unserious at the same time.
It began the way many of golf's best traditions do. A few players kept showing up to practice on the club's large putting green. Competition naturally followed. Then came structure. Five original members became the group's "founding board members," adopting the "Game of 7" as the Society's signature format. After an initial board meeting and dinner, the rules were refined, recorded and turned into something that could be played as either an individual or team game.
That blend of formality and fun is part of the charm.
By the Numbers
5 founding board members helped create the Society's original framework
7 points are needed to win in the signature "Game of 7"
2 points are awarded for each made putt
6 to 3 is the penalty "bust" if a player or team makes one at the wrong time
75 feet is the kind of putt Champions members quickly learn to handle
100-plus feet are the kinds of putts that can be chosen in GPS matches
This is not a gambling game dressed up in clever branding. Quite the opposite. Hydorn made clear that no money changes hands in GPS matches. That matters. At a club known for strong players and a serious respect for the game, the Society reflects a culture where competition itself is the prize.
That idea feels especially resonant today. Golf at its best has never needed high stakes to create high meaning. Sometimes all it takes is a good game, a few friends and enough pride to care who holes the next one.
A Tribute to Jackie Burke Jr.
The Gentlemen's Putting Society is not just fun club culture. It also feels like a living nod to the spirit of Champions itself.
Founded in 1957 by Jackie Burke Jr. and Jimmy Demaret, Champions has long carried a reputation as a place where tradition, knowledge of the game and competitive excellence all matter. Hydorn sees the Society as very much in line with that heritage, especially because Burke's influence still lingers over the club and its culture.
Burke, of course, was known for his putting prowess, and Hydorn believes the Society would have made him smile. More than that, it seems to embody the kind of golfing values Burke cherished. Hydorn described him as funny, sharp and wonderfully cynical, someone who loved to poke at players who spent all their time chasing full-swing perfection while ignoring the part of the game that actually saves scores.
In that sense, Champions remains a putting club.
That identity is reinforced by the golf course itself. The Cypress Course features massive greens, and one of the first adjustments new members must make is learning how to handle putts stretching 75 feet or more. The practice green mirrors that scale. In GPS competition, Hydorn says, the team with honor will sometimes select a putt from more than 100 feet away.
That is where the fun begins.
There is also a beautiful thread of continuity here. Mike Burke, Jackie Burke Jr.'s oldest son, is a board member and regular participant in GPS matches. That detail alone gives the Society an almost storybook quality. This is not tradition being preserved in a display case. It is tradition still breathing.
Where Strategy Meets Friendship
What elevates the Gentlemen's Putting Society beyond novelty is the game itself.
Matches happen constantly. Hydorn said there is hardly a day that goes by without GPS games being played. The cast changes from night to night. There are regulars, occasional drop-ins and the sort of rotating energy that keeps anything from becoming stale or closed off.
And then there is the strategy.
The Game of 7 is not as simple as making the most putts. It is a point game to seven, with each made putt worth two points. But there is a twist: players or teams sitting on six can make a putt and "bust" back to three. In other words, you can be punished for being a little too good at the wrong moment.
That one wrinkle tells you a lot about why this thing has legs.
It keeps everyone engaged. It creates drama. It rewards planning and patience just as much as pure stroke-making. Most importantly, it means the best putter does not automatically win. In a club full of accomplished players, that kind of balance is probably part of what keeps people coming back.
Hydorn also pointed to something even more important. Some of his closest friends are part of the Society, and for him, the value is not merely in the matches themselves but in laughing, joking and competing with people he cares about on a regular basis.
That may be the most relatable part of the whole thing.
Why It Matters Beyond Champions
The Gentlemen's Putting Society sounds wonderfully specific to Champions, yet it also speaks to something universal in the game.
Golf is often at its best when it creates small communities inside larger ones. A regular game. A standing match. A little routine that becomes part of a club's heartbeat. These traditions may not appear on television or in glossy rankings, but they are often the reason people fall in love with a place.
Hydorn said the Society started almost as a joke, a group of guys acting very official about nightly putting games. But somewhere along the way, it became something far more meaningful.
That is how the best traditions tend to work. They sneak up on you.
What begins as a fun way to pass an hour becomes a ritual. A ritual becomes culture. Culture becomes identity.
And in an era when golf can sometimes feel pulled toward bigger, louder and more commercial versions of itself, there is something powerful about a group reminding us that one of the game's richest experiences can still be found on a putting green at dusk, among friends, with nothing on the line but pride.
In the end, that may be the real beauty of The Gentlemen's Putting Society.
It honors a club. It honors a founder. It honors the art of putting.
Most of all, it honors the idea that golf, even at its most competitive, is still supposed to bring people together.
Why It Matters
The Gentlemen's Putting Society is more than a nightly game. It reflects the spirit of Champions Golf Club through tradition, competition, camaraderie and respect for the game.
There is no gambling and no spectacle for spectacle's sake. The reward is pride, friendship and the kind of meaningful competition that gives club life its heartbeat.
It also stands as a living tribute to Jackie Burke Jr., reminding golfers that some of the game's richest moments still happen on the practice green.
PGA of America Golf Professional Brendon Elliott is an award-winning coach and golf writer who serves as Athlon Sports Senior Golf Writer. Read his recent "The Starter" on R.org, where he is their Lead Golf Writer. To stay updated on all of his latest work, sign up for his newsletter or visit his MuckRack Profile.
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This story was originally published April 29, 2026 at 7:15 PM.