Each County in England has a County Union. The County Unions were formed by the clubs to help develop the game of golf in each County through Championships and Team competition and they have been very successful in doing this - every player on the professional tours developed their game first through County Golf and the quality of top Amateur golf would be no-where near as good as it is were it not for this group of unions.
The County Unions are non-profit making organisations who have only small incomes for all that they do and the County Cards are a way of both providing a little extra income and giving more opoportunity to everyday golfers to enjoy the game of golf.
All the small fee for a County Card goes to each Union, helping to pay for the development of Junior Golf, as well as the Championships and team that each Union supports. This is very different to other schemes where cards are sold for profit for a business.