Challenge Tour keeps Aviemore date in June

THE Scottish Hydro Challenge, which will be held at the Macdonald Spey Valley in Aviemore for the third year running on 23-26 June, is one of only two events due to be staged in Britain and Ireland as part of the 2011 European Challenge Tour.

While Wentworth officials are trumpeting the fact a 26-event schedule will take in visits to 18 different countries on four continents, it also provides proof they are finding it increasingly difficult to stage tournaments closer to home.

Missing from the schedule are events in both Ireland and Wales, the latter having been a regular Challenge Tour host in the build up to the Ryder Cup at Celtic Manor, though the English Challenge at Stoke by Nayland has been retained from last year.

The Scottish Hydro Challenge, which has produced home winners for the last two years after George Murray succeeded Jamie McLeary as the title holder in June, will be up against the BMW International Open in Germany on the main Tour this time around.

The circuit starts this week in India, where five Scots - Jack Doherty, Craig Lee, Callum Macaulay, Gavin Dear and Ross Bain - are in the field for the inaugural Gujarat Kensville Challenge on the Jeev Milkha Singh-designed Kensville course in Ahmedabad. Milkha Singh, India's leading player, will be leading the home challenge, along with rising star Ashok Kumar, the leading professional on the Professional Golf Tour of India Order of Merit and Asian Tour regular Gaganjeet Bhullar.

Other new events are being held in Italy and Norway, though the most lucrative regular event on the schedule remains the Kazakhstan Open, which after two years at Zhailjau Golf Resort returns to Nurtau Golf Club in Almaty from 8-11 September.

"To have at least 26 tournaments, with a good chance of adding a few more, is highly encouraging and shows that the Challenge Tour's foundations are very solid indeed," said Alain de Soultrait, the circuit's director.

Murray's win in Aviemore helped him graduate from the second tier to the main Tour last year along with two more of his compatriots, Scott Jamieson and Raymond Russell.