Ministry of National Defense Reviews Eligibility Criteria for 'Military Golf Club Privileged Members'
[Asia Economy Sejong=Reporter Son Seon-hee] Going forward, government supervision will be strengthened regarding unfair practices such as reservation preemption at public golf courses and non-member reservations at membership golf courses.
The Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission announced on the 4th that it has prepared the "Measures to Establish a Fair and Transparent Golf Course Usage Culture" and recommended it to the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, the Ministry of National Defense, and local governments.
According to related laws, public golf courses must allow use in the order of reservations, and membership golf courses must guarantee members priority reservation opportunities.
However, recently, numerous complaints have been raised that someone preempted reservation rights at public golf courses, making it impossible to make reservations at the start time. Reviewing the actual complaints, it was reported that at exactly 9:00 AM, the reservation start time, only a very limited number of reservations were available on the website, or reservations were already fully booked. This raised suspicions that although the courses are formally public golf courses, they are effectively operating advance reservations like membership courses.
Conversely, complaints have been made that membership golf courses do not guarantee priority reservation rights to members and instead accept reservations mainly from non-members who can pay higher fees. The issue is that membership golf courses exclude existing members and arbitrarily sell booking rights to non-members and groups at higher prices.
Complaints related to golf course reservations have increased more than sixfold, from 94 cases in 2019 to 610 cases last year.
Additionally, an investigation into 35 military golf courses (military fitness centers) operated by the Military Welfare Group and various military branches revealed that although the purpose of these military golf courses is leisure and welfare enhancement for active and reserve military personnel, wide-ranging honorary membership qualifications have been granted to related institution personnel such as Ministry of National Defense officials and general students in the security course at the Korea National Defense University.
Accordingly, the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission recommended the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism to prohibit unfair reservation methods such as preempting golf course reservations and to specifically regulate these in related laws. Furthermore, it recommended local governments to establish related guidelines to build a regular inspection system for fair and transparent golf course use and to strengthen inspections accordingly.
It also recommended the Ministry of National Defense to review and revise the qualification criteria for honorary members at military golf courses to prevent any possibility of preferential treatment.
Lee Jeong-hee, Vice Chairman of the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission, said, "Through this institutional improvement, we hope to contribute to establishing a fair and transparent golf course usage culture by improving unfair practices related to golf course reservations."
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