SLGA need volunteers to run

live scoring service from

"Scottish" at Southerness

The Scottish Ladies Golfing Association introduced a "live scoring" service on its website - http://www.slga.co.uk/ - from the Helen Holm Scottish women's open amateur championship at Troon last weekend.
It was so successful that during the final round on Sunday over Royal Troon, the website "crashed" because it was overloaded with thousands of people logging on or trying to log on to find out who was winning.
It is believed that many of the "hits" came from Ireland as
the 14-year-old Maguire twins, Leona (the ultimate winner) and Lisa (who finished joint third) were in contention. There would also have been many from Scotland as Nairn Dunbar's Kelsey MacDonald was actually leading at one point of the final round before finishing second.
Encouraged by the response, the SLGA now plan to run a live scoring website service from the Scottish women's amateur championship at Southerness Golf Club on the Solway Firth from May 19 to 23.
The only snag is that live-scoring is a labour-intensive operation. The SLGA need volunteers they can send out onto the course to radio back to the clubhouse all the scores every three holes during the two qualifying rounds.
"We need as many as 13 volunteers, so that they can get regular breaks during the day. It might be more difficult to get as many down at Southerness than it was from the Troon area where the population is bigger and possibily more interested in golf," said Mrs Fiona Farquharson (pictured above by Cal Carson Golfing Agency), the SLGA's Tournament Officer.
"We were delighted with the way the website live scoring went at our first attempt. The weather and the Troon links terrain meant that the radio reception for messages coming in from our volunteers out on the course caused us a few problems but it was well worth it.
"At Southerness, we plan to do live scoring during the Tuesday-Wednesday stroke-playing qualifying rounds, have a break, and then resume the service from the later stages of the match-play on Friday and the 18-hole final on the Saturday morning."
Anyone who wants to volunteer should telephone the SLGA headquarters in Perth at 01738 442357 or send an E-mail to secretary@slga.co.uk