Martin Dempster: After Matthew win, Ladies Scottish Open now a 'must'

Published on Monday 30 November 2009 23:13

THE 2010 calendar is taking to take shape and there are some tasty-looking treats in store for those golf fans who cherish the chance to forget about their own game now and again to watch some of the world's best players on a Scottish course.

For starters, it's the 150th anniversary of The Open Championship next year and we've known for ages that the Old Course at St Andrews will be the venue for that spectacle.

Then there's some mouth- watering European Tour events. Dubai's financial woes may be causing a headache for George O'Grady, the Tour's chief executive, but hopefully things will be looking a lot brighter by the time his caravan rolls into Scotland next summer. As has become the norm in recent years, the Barclays Scottish Open at Loch Lomond will be its first destination north of the Border, followed by the Johnnie Walker Championship at Gleneagles then last, but certainly not least, the Dunhill Links Championship at its three traditional homes, St Andrews, Carnoustie and Kingsbarns.

The middle of those three events may have attracted a pretty low-key field this year but not in 2010. That, of course, is because it's the final qualifying event for the Ryder Cup and, although his team is shaping up nicely already, Colin Montgomerie is looking for a star-studded line-up in gathering in Perthshire to make their final push for a place.

Add in the fact the Senior Open Championship, an event that has grown in popularity in recent years – and rightly so given that it now boasts the likes of Tom Watson, Greg Norman, Bernhard Langer, Sandy Lyle and Sam Torrace – is heading for Carnoustie next July and it's lip-licking stuff on the professional front, at least as far as the men's game is concerned.

Top-level amateur golf is enjoyable too, and they don't come any bigger than the Amateur Championship. It's heading for Muirfield in 2010 – North Berwick will be the other qualifying course – and it will be fascinating to see if we get another winner there of the calibre of the 1998 champion, Sergio Garcia.

A few weeks later, Gullane will play host to this country's leading amateurs in the Allied Surveyors Scottish Amateur Championship and, on the face of things, it is shaping up to be a season to savour for Scottish golf and in particular, the fans.

That will only be the case, however, if one event is there in black and white when a schedule still to be released is unveiled. I'm talking about the Ladies European Tour and the situation regarding the Ladies' Scottish Open. After an 11-year absence, wasn't it fantastic to see that being resurrected in 2007, when the Swede, Sophie Gustafson, lifted the title at The Carrick on Loch Lomond? It produced another quality winner in Gwladys Nocera from France at the same venue in 2008 yet dropped off the schedule this year.

That was disappointing and it will be hugely embarrassing if there's still no Scottish Women's Open on the 2010 fixture list. Why? Because it would be a massive kick in the teeth to the person I believe is not only Scotland's golfer of the year but also Scotland's Sports Personality of the Year.

Catriona Matthew has been a credit to Scottish golf for as long as I care to remember but she catapulted herself into greatness when she won the Ricoh Women's British Open at Royal Lytham this year, beating a world-class field just a few weeks after giving birth to her second child.

It may have been her first major success but it was no fluke. Matthew has held her own on the LPGA Tour for years now and has done as much as Lyle, Torrance and Montgomerie have to fly the Saltire around the world.

It's a pity Matthew won't be able to defend her British crown in Scotland – Royal Birkdale hosts the 2010 event before it heads to Carnoustie the following year – and that's why it's even more important that we see the Ladies' Scottish Open up and running again.

Just imagine Matthew talking to some of the Americans or Koreans she's regularly up against on the LPGA Tour and them asking her how often she gets the chance to play in front of her home fans. Poor Catriona must cringe with embarrassment at times when she thinks how much she's been short-changed by the country in which she cut her golfing teeth.

I do believe that efforts are being made behind the scenes to have a 2010 Ladies' Scottish Open and it simply has to happen. Let's give those golf fans a proper opportunity to say 'well done' to Catriona Matthew for recording one of Scotland's greatest sporting triumphs.

In the meantime, make sure you give her your backing in those sports personality polls over the coming weeks.

Fascinating viewing as Tiger lets his guard down

AFTER boxing clever for so many years, who would have believed that Tiger Woods could have let his guard down so spectacularly?

Crashing his car in the early hours of the morning, rumours of an affair with a Manhattan hostess he's reported to have met up with when he won the Australian Masters in Melbourne recently.

It's been fascinating stuff over the past few days and, for the first time in his life, Tiger has been making the headlines for something other than his remarkable golfing skills.

His timing couldn't be worse. He has pulled out of his own annual end-of-season tournament in California this week in aid of the Tiger Woods Foundation, but was due to give a press conference later today. If that does indeed go ahead, there are going to be plenty of people looking forward to seeing the world No1 squirm for a change and, looking beyond this week, it will be fascinating to see what effect, if any, this episode will have on Woods as he chases Jack Nicklaus' major record.

What I'm interested to know is what club did wife Erin use to hit the car? If it was that driver that he often sprays about all over the place, she might actually have done him a favour.