Gleneagles experience for Gullane juniors

Twelve budding young golfers from Gullane Golf Club in East Lothian enjoyed a day at Gleneagles on Sunday

Their visit was a direct result of Gleneagles and Scotland’s national junior golf programme, clubgolf, joining forces again to promote junior golf in Scotland this summer by offering participating clubs an opportunity to play on its Wee Course every Sunday between 15 June and 12 October.

Launched at Gleneagles in 2003 clubgolf is a partnership between the Scottish Golf Union, Scottish Ladies Golfing Association, Professional Golfers Association, the Golf Foundation and sportscotland. It aims to create the opportunity for every child to experience golf by age nine and increase junior participation in golf in Scotland.

“This was the first time our children have been to Gleneagles and they all thought it was a great experience,” said Iain McLean, qualified volunteer coach at Gullane who accompanied the eight boys and four girls, aged between 11 and 14.

“They used the practice facilities for an hour, hit balls on the range and used the short game area before doing some putting practice. Then they played 9 holes on the Wee Course.

“We’ve taken the children to Craigielaw, Dalmahoy and Muirfield before. It’s great to take them away to a different course which has different challenges and it’s good fun for them to go to somewhere new in a group.”

Thirteen year old Andrew O’Riordan, who has been on Gullane’s clubgolf programme for the past three years and has progressed to Stage 3 coaching with Pro, Alasdair Good, found the Gleneagles experience a great motivator.

“It was really good fun,” said Andrew, who is hoping to get his first handicap this year. “It was quite a challenging Par 3 course and some of the holes were quite hard. Sometimes you had to hit the ball around trees.

“I’ve never been to Gleneagles before and it was great to play on a famous course.”

Patrick Elsmie, Gleneagles’ Managing Director, said, “Gleneagles has always been committed to golf and we are thrilled to be a part of the clubgolf initiative. We hope to be able to help them in achieving their goal of allowing every child in Scotland to experience the game by the age of nine.

“As the venue to the Ryder Cup in 2014 it is important that Gleneagles continues to work closely with organisations like clubgolf to ensure that the game of golf in Scotland and our young people reap the benefits of playing host to such a prestigious tournament”.