SGU defends axing Mid-Am as new event is launched by English firm

THE Scottish Golf Union has defended its decision to discontinue the Mid Amateur Championship and open the door for a commercial operator to launch a similar event for over-35s.

The governing body launched the Scottish Open Mid Amateur Championship in 1994, when East Renfrewshire’s Craig Watson, the former Amateur champion, claimed the title at Blairgowrie.

Since then, other winners have included Glenn Campbell (1998), Englishman Roger Roper (2004) and Allyn Dick (2005 and 2006) but the tournament was dropped from the SGU schedule last year due to a declining number of entries.

The R&A also discontinued the British Mid-Amateur Championship, held between 1997 and 2007, after it “struggled to establish itself as a sufficiently distinctive event in the British men’s amateur golfing calendar”.

Now a new event, the Scottish Mid-Amateur Stroke Play Championship, is set to be held at Dundonald Links in April as part of the Mid Amateur Golf Tour, which is being organised by an English-based marketing company.

It will be staged over 36 holes on one day, much shorter than the SGU event, which was held over four days and involved stroke-play qualifying over two rounds then match-play knock-out.

Another difference is that the new event is for over-35s, whereas it was 25 and over in the Scottish Mid-Amateur Championship.

Entry for the new event is £95 – more than double what the SGU charged in 2010 at East Renfrewshire – with organisers anticipating a pot of £1250 to be split between scratch and handicap prizes. The Dundonald tournament is one of a whole host of Mid-Am events being planned by Wyncanton Marketing Services Ltd. The first is due to be at Chart Hills in Kent, with Sunningdale, Royal Cinque Ports, Royal St David’s and Slaley Hall also set to stage tournaments.

“Following on from our success last year, we felt it was time to give players something to aim for and add a bit of spice to all of the events throughout 2012,” said Jason Morris, the company’s golf director.

“Mid-Amateur events are becoming increasingly popular, with some attracting in excess of 66 players, all with handicaps of two or less.

“We also want to add events to the schedule that cater for the other golfers who get balloted out of some of the more established events.”

Morris’ claim about such events increasing in popularity is contrary to what the SGU witnessed in the final few years of the Scottish Mid-Am.

“It was discontinued on the back of diminishing demand, despite out best efforts to promote it,” said Euan Mordaunt, the SGU’s Events Manager.

“It was the one event we really had to work hard at to get players to compete in. The others sell themselves.

“We were not getting a full field for the event and, in 2010, we were close to cancelling it at short notice as we had 50 competitors and were looking at getting almost double that. That led to us holding a review of the event and it was decided that we could not find ourselves in that position again, especially when a club would be giving up its course for four days.

“The outcome, regrettable as it was, is that we decided to discontinue the event. We had to be responsible about it.”

With the Welsh Mid Amateur having also fallen by the wayside, the only established events left on the calendar are the European and English Mid Am Championships.

“One of the issues probably is that Mid Am is not a defined term and it varies from body to body,” added Mordaunt. “The English and European events, for example, are for over 35s.”

Morris claimed the SGU had been “very difficult” over the name of the new Scottish event. “I would have thought the unions would be keen to promote golf in Scotland rather than hindering our efforts,” he said.