Reay clubgolfer selected for Scottish Golf Academy

November 2009

Reay Golf Club's Eleanor Tunn has progressed through the clubgolf programme to reach the Scottish Golf Academy.

Fourteen year old Eleanor was selected this month after her first season travelling to competitions beyond Caithness.
 
“It was a nice surprise because I went to a talent ID day in Stirling with lots of other girls and quite a few were a lot older than me,” said Eleanor, who finished her season on the Scottish Ladies Golf Association’s (SLGA) Girls Order of Merit, for Scotland’s best under 18 girls, for the first time.
 
Surprisingly Eleanor comes from a non-golfing family – neither of her parents plays the game.  She started golf aged five, attracted to Reay Golf Club, like so many other children, by its thriving junior coaching on Friday nights.  Had the family not moved to Reay from Cumbria when Eleanor was a three year old it is highly likely she would not be playing golf.
 
When Reay came on board with the national junior programme, clubgolf, in 2004, Eleanor was one of the first children to benefit from the new, structured coaching programme.  
 
clubgolf is the partnership between the Scottish Golf Union, the Scottish Ladies' Golfing Association, the Professional Golfers' Association, the Golf Foundation and sportscotland which emerged from Scotland’s successful bid to host the Ryder Cup.  
 
Through clubgolf, Club members became trained and qualified to coach, schools were approached to encourage primary aged children to play, and the Caithness and North Sutherland Junior Golf Partnership was created to ensure that the highest number of children could benefit.  
 
One of the Club’s volunteers, Evan Sutherland, became the first amateur coach in Scotland to earn the Level 2 coaching qualification, and has since been through Stage 3 Orientation. With the lack of pro in Caithness he has filled an important gap in the region’s coaching programme.  
 
The recent addition of a remote video link with the professional at Brora Golf Club means that Reay juniors have benefitted from professional advice that has reduced the travel young golfers needed to make to get professional help.
 
Eleanor has made impressive progress through Reay’s clubgolf programme since she joined it aged nine.  In 2008, her first season proper, she earned a handicap, reducing it to 18 at the close.  
 
This season has been a breakthrough on many fronts.  For the first time she competed extensively outside the confines of Caithness in national events, reaching the quarter finals of the Scottish Girls Closed Amateur Championships and, on the Old Course, making the semi finals of the handicap event in the St Andrews Junior Ladies.
 
This season she reduced her handicap to 12 and finished 47th on the SLGA Order of Merit.  
 
Eleanor is quick to acknowledge her coach’s help.  “Evan has been amazing,” she said. “He’s given up a lot of time to do this and he’s always there to help.  I only have to call him to ask for help and he’ll meet me at the Club.  
 
“We are always out on the golf course, through the winter, even if it’s cold. I also do after school coaching with Evan in the gym where we put up nets.”
 
Evan, typically, trumpets the system in place, rather than his own personal involvement, “It is all down to the clubgolf coaching initiative and it proves that the clubgolf system through its various stages has worked both for Eleanor as a player and indeed in the way the coaches have been trained.
 
"She has been a pleasure to coach throughout the last five years and, although it is impossible to predict how far she can progress at such an early age, she has the talent, drive and determination to do well and this coaching programme will be a huge benefit to her.
 
"Hopefully it will spur on many of the other juniors we are training through the clubgolf coaching system to reach their own golfing goals.”
 
Eleanor has now started her Scottish Golf Academy winter programme of coaching with Regional Academy Coach, Stuart Morrison, based at Tain Golf Club.  Her successful partnership with Evan will continue and he will attend coaching sessions so that he can continue to support Eleanor when she is practising back home in Reay.

At a time when clubgolf is making a major push to attract more girls into golf, Eleanor is also a perfect advert for the game
 
“I love the game, being out on the course and going around and playing on so many different courses...some of them are amazing,” she said.  
 
“It’s a nice sport and it’s not fast or directly competitive.  You can play your own game and have a nice time with the other people you are with.”