Macdonald’s Spey Valley resident professional Murray Urquhart coaching 11-year-old Connor Preston from Royal Dornoch GC and a group of juniors from Nairn GC.

Pros make good impression on clubgolf juniors at Aviemore

All who took part in Saturday’s junior coaching clinics at the Scottish Hydro Challenge Tour event at the Macdonald’s Spey Valley Golf Course believe the experience will have a lasting effect.
Forty three children from clubgolf programmes at six Highland clubs spent the day at the event. They had a coaching session with resident pro Murray Urquhart and had what onlookers described as a ‘highly competitive’ putting competition before spending the afternoon watching the competitors on the course.
“It was a great day and I’ve never been to anything like this before,” said chirpy 11 year old Connor Preston who has been on Royal Dornoch’s clubgolf coaching programme with pro Gary Dingwall since he started playing the game just over a year ago.
“The pros were really nice to us when they came off the course. They gave us balls and signed programmes for us.
“We learnt so much and practised a lot of different shots, learnt how to hold the club and how to hit the ball. I’m going to go away and practise, particularly my putting.”
“I want to keep going, get better, try and get to pro standard and travel everywhere playing golf.”
The junior day concluded what has been the national junior golf strategy, clubgolf’s, week long involvement in the event. On Monday 60 clubgolf volunteer coaches enjoyed a pro am. Then on Thursday, almost 140 local school children who have been introduced to the game through clubgolf were invited to coaching clinics and watched the action.
Saturday was the day for juniors who have made progression from introduction at school to clubgolf at local clubs and there was a good representation of clubs involved. Children and volunteer coaches travelled from Invergordon, Nairn, Royal Dornoch and Torvean, as well as local clubs Kingussie and Newtonmore.
Making the journey south with 20 children from Nairn Golf Club’s clubgolf programme was Peter Abbott, Honorary Secretary of the SGU North District Golf Association.
“Today makes a huge difference to the children,” he said.
“The children were amazed to see what Murray Urquhart could do with the ball. They were fascinated to watch professional players on the course. When the players came in they were great with the children, giving them balls, which from a pro to a junior is a prize possession.”
Mr Abbott, in his SGU role, is uniquely placed to comment on how clubgolf is transforming golf in the Highlands.
“clubgolf is making a world of difference to our members and their playing abilities,” he said.
“I’m in touch with 57 clubs in the north of Scotland and before clubgolf started, out of all those clubs, I would be lucky to get half a dozen juniors coming along to our talent ID days where we select the juniors for the training squads.
“Now, because of clubgolf, we had 75 juniors coming along to our last talent ID day. They come to us and we take them with a 28 handicap and nurture them to scratch and we pass them on to the Academy to play for Scotland and hopefully turn pro as they get older.
“At Nairn we have between 70 and 90 juniors on our clubgolf coaching programme and most have come from clubgolf in schools.
Most of their parents aren’t players so they are the keen kids and it can only help the future of golf. It’s fantastic to see the interest clubgolf is generating and it’s definitely working.”
clubgolf thanks the European Challenge Tour, Macdonald’s Spey Valley Golf Course and Murray Urquhart for giving the juniors and volunteer coaches a wonderful week.
Rob Eyton-Jones
clubgolf Media Manager