Exclusive:New mid-amateur events in Scotland will honour Ian Hutcheon and Kevin McAlpine

Kevin McAlpine pictured caddying for fellow Scot Martin Laird in 2021 in The Genesis Invitational at Riviera Country Club in Pacific Palisades, California | Sean M. Haffey/Getty Images

Two new events for mid-amateurs are being launched in Scotland later this year, one carrying the name of a legendary amateur and the other being held in memory of a well-known figure who continues to be sadly missed.

The Hutcheon, which has been named, of course, in honour of Ian Hutcheon, will be played at Monifieth Golf Links on 4-7 August, starting with stroke-play qualifying but then becoming what will effectively be the Scottish Mid-Amateur Match-Play Championship.

The McAlpine, meanwhile, will take place over 54 holes of stroke-play at Alyth on 23-24 June and that has been named in memory of Kevin McAlpine, the former Scottish Amateur champion who sadly passed away at the age of 39 in October 2023.

The two events, both of which have been ratified by The R&A and will carry World Amateur Golf Ranking points, have been launched by a new group called the Scottish Mid-Amateur Championships, which was set up by two well-known amateurs, Allyn Dick of Kingsfield and Blairgowrie Golf Club’s Connor Neil, following a chat as they played a game together last year.

Kevin McAlpine pictured caddying for fellow Scot Martin Laird in 2021 in The Genesis Invitational at Riviera Country Club in Pacific Palisades, California | Sean M. Haffey/Getty Images

Won twice by Dick, the Scottish Mid-Amateur Championship had been run for a number of years by Scottish Golf before it was scrapped more than a decade ago while several amateur events that were once popular have also fallen by the wayside.

“Me and Connor were gassing about the Scottish Area Team Championship when we were playing golf one day and it just came up in the conversation about the gap there is between elite golf and seniors’ golf - it is enormous,” Dick told The Scotsman.

“It would be wrong to say there is nothing there as that would be a dis-service to people who run alternative mid-am tours. They have done so since 2013 after 2012 was the last proper Mid-Am Championship run by Scottish Golf.

“There are ones that pop up every now and again through various tours that people operate, which is fine, but my issue with them is that the quality of the field is just not there. It has no prestige and carries no real merit as a tournament. I get it. You have to give people the opportunity to play, but it’s how you then grow it.”

The pair had initially thought about approaching Scottish Golf to see if they could effectively resurrect the Scottish Mid-Amateur Championship by playing for the same trophy but decided against that idea due to it officially being called the DM Hall Trophy.

Ian Hutcheon faced his nephew, Chris, in the 2017 Monifieth Links club championship final. | Monifieth Links

“Instead, we came up with the idea of seeing if we could do it ourselves and it has pretty much snow-balled from there,” added Dick. “We’ve got our two venues, Alyth Golf Club and Monifieth Golf Links, lined up for this year and have come up with The McAlpine and The Hutcheon as the names for them because we believe that people like referring to tournaments by a name.

“The McAlpine is in memory of Kevin McAlpine, who was a Perth & Kinross player and someone I’d played against for years in Area Team Championships. We reached out to Hamish (Kevin’s dad and a former Dundee United goalkeeper) and the family and asked if we could name the event in his memory, which they gave us their blessing to do so"

“We then thought about doing a match-play event and started thinking about people who are playing the game who are Scottish golfing legends and Ian Hutcheon is certainly in that bracket. So we reached out to Chris, his nephew, and got the ball rolling with that one and Ian, apparently, has been taken aback about what we are doing.

“We are also glad that both Alyth Golf Club and Monifieth Golf Links agreed to host the first events as we feel its a very fitting starting point as its the clubs where both Kevin and Ian honed their golfing skills.”

Both events are open to men and women, with the age bracket having initially been set for over-30s rather than the over-25 one that was in place for the old Scottish Mid-Amateur Championship while an England Golf Mid-Amateur event is for players aged 35 and above.

“We are obviously targeting the working man and woman,” said Dick. “We have started small. We could have gone for full fields, but we felt that if we create an appetite and hunger to play, then you can grow it going forward.”

As has been the case with Alan Tait’s Golfbreaks Get Back to Golf Tour, which was launched to give both amateurs and professionals playing opportunities during the Covid pandemic, while Tait also now has a Scottish Women’s Amateur Tour up and running.

Kingsfield’s Allyn Dick pictured after winning the South East District Open at Turnhouse in 2021 | Contributed

“We have done a lot of work,” added Dick, a real golf enthusiast. “We have reached out to a lot of golf clubs and, pretty much over the next five years, we have eight or nine golf clubs lined up for future venues in the hope that this year’s events take off as we hope. We are trying to spread it about and we are really looking forward to getting going this year.

“We would also like to thank Gavin Dear of Shotscope and Ross Bell of Mizuno who have come on board as partners, both have been incredibly generous in providing us with prizes for both events.”