Former Open Champion Paul Lawrie has confirmed the staging next year of the Race to Dubai 2015 Saltire Energy Match-Play Championship to be staged from July 30th to August 2nd at the Murcar Golf Links in Aberdeeen.
The event will be a 64-player tournament carrying a prize purse of Euro 1m.
This maiden tournament was penciled in for the same week in June as the US Open but is now to be held two week’s after the Open Championship.
The new event will now be the fourth men’s event to be staged in Scotland next year and the possibility of a fifth with the Johnnie Walker Championship penciled in the later part of the season.
As well, Lawrie has close connections with Murcar Links Golf Club through his Foundation. The links course, which was established in 1909, hosted the Paul Lawrie Golf Centre Northern Open earlier this year and the Paul Lawrie Foundation Scottish Boys Championship in 2012. It also hosted the inaugural Scottish Challenge on the European Challenge Tour in 2006.
It means with the Scottish Open, The Open, Paul Lawrie’s event and the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship there will be prize-money totaling £13.2m up for grabs in Scotland next season.
“I’m delighted to be announcing this new tournament and it’s fantastic to be bringing another European Tour event to my home town of Aberdeen,” explained Lawrie.
“Match play is a format that we don’t get to play too often out on tour, so it’s an exciting opportunity for an elite knockout tournament to come to Scotland.”
Lawrie revealed that the seeds of the tournament were sewn during the hugely successful Scottish Open at Royal Aberdeen last summer and he added that hosting his own European Tour event is something that he has been deliberating on for some time.
“I’ve often looked at the Arnold Palmer Invitational on the PGA Tour and thought to myself how cool it would be to put my own name on an event,” said the 45-year-old.
“But this isn’t an ego thing for me. It’s just part of giving back. I’ve been on tour a long time and it’s awesome to have this opportunity.”
“The Ryder Cup in Scotland demonstrated the appetite that Scottish golf fans have for matchplay golf.” – George O’Grady, European Tour chief executive
For Murcar Links, today’s announcement marks the first time that the popular course – sandwiched between Royal Aberdeen and Trump International Golf Links – will have been used to stage a European Tour event, although it did stage the inaugural Scottish Challenge on the Challenge Tour in 2006.
Assuming that the Johnnie Walker Championship does indeed return to the schedule, as was intimidated when it went on its hiatus last year to allow host venue Gleneagles to prepare for the Ryder Cup, Scotland is in line to stage at least five European Tour events next year: the Scottish Open (Gullane), the Open (St Andrews), Satire Energy Paul Lawrie Matchplay (Murcar Links), the Johnnie Walker Championship, and the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship.
George O’Grady, the outgoing chief executive of the European Tour, commented: “The Ryder Cup in Scotland demonstrated the appetite that Scottish golf fans have for match-play golf, so we must thank Paul, along with Satire Energy and 4Sports [Lawrie’s management firm, which will handle the promotion of the event] for helping this tournament to become a part of the European Tour International Schedule.”
