Martin Dempster: Greig Hutcheon would be great as a mentor

As Greig Hutcheon showed when winning the Scottish PGA Championship at Gleneagles for a third time last week at the age of 45, there is life in the old dog yet. The Banchory man, in fact, already has one eye on the Staysure Tour, especially after seeing two of his PGA peers, Paul Streeter and David Shacklady, land maiden wins on the over-50s circuit this season.

Greig Hutcheon with the M and H Logistics Scottish PGA Championship trophy. Picture: Picture: Alan Rennie

At the same time as his playing career eventually starts to wind down, though, it would be great to see Hutcheon being encouraged to play a role in helping to develop Scotland’s stars of the future. We are talking here, after all, about a player who has been there and done it, enjoying a successful amateur career before recording three Challenge Tour wins and then being a dominant force on the Tartan Tour.

In short, Hutcheon is somone who has a knack of squeezing everything he can out of a round of golf and an individual like that would surely be every bit as useful in helping youngsters to develop than someone passing on technical advice. The same goes for Hutcheon’s old pal, David Drysdale, who may have struggled this year on the European Tour but got there in the end and lives to fight another year.