Golf: Lothians will be in good Nic for new Scottish Area Championship

LOTHIANS captain Keith Nicholson is hoping his side can bounce back from last year's disappointment to become the first winners of the "new" Scottish Area Team Championship.

As expected, the event is being played under a different format this year and, in another change, it will also be played early in the season rather than right at the end.

It is being played over the Montgomery and Bruce courses at Kinross, where the 16 Areas that make up the Scottish Golf Union will compete over the weekend of May 15-16.

Instead of a round robin and then a knock-out format, teams of six players will play two rounds of stroke-play on the first day, when five of the scores in each of the rounds will count towards a side's aggregate. The top four teams will then go forward to play in the semi-finals the following morning with the final the same afternoon.

"We may not be totally happy with the change but it's been made and we now have to get on with it so we will be preparing for the event as best as we can," said Nicholson.

Since the inaugural Scottish Area Team Championship was held at Lanark in 1977, Lothians have lifted the trophy a record 13 times but last year was a campaign to forget as they failed to win a game.

"We were second best in the games we played last year and will be trying to rectify that," added Nicholson.

As well as traditional early-season matches against Stirlingshire, Borders and Northumberland, the Lothians champion is hoping to arrange an additional fixture that would also help the development of some of the promising youngsters.

"We have a few things in the pipeline, one of which is a match between a boys/youths select and a men's select," he revealed.

"We have a great junior coaching programme in the Lothians but, once players come out of that, they can disappear off the radar and a match like this would help with a player's progression."