END OF AN ERA FOR FORMER TOP AMATEUR AND TOUR PRO

MURIEL THOMSON, MORE THAN 24 

YEARS AS PORTLETHEN CLUB PRO,

 TO RETIRE AT END OF YEAR


By COLIN FARQUHARSON
Colin@scottishgolfview.com
Muriel Thomson, one of Scotland's leading golfers, first as an amateur and then a tournament professional, through the 1970s and 80s, is to retire at the end of December as Portlethen Golf Club's first and only professional since April 1990.

"It has been an amazing journey and it only seems like yesterday that the local paper was writing about me playing in the Scottish girls championships! I played cackhanded in those days," recalled Muriel, one of triplet daughters of the late "Chapper" Thomson, also a Murcar Links member and one of the founding administrators of the Scottish PGA's Tartan Tour.
"How fortunate I have been to be able to earn my living through doing what I enjoy the most. I have been very blessed to have been able to do that.
"I am now looking forward to spending my days out on my bicycle, tramping the hills (she has done all the Munros!), pottering about in my garden and growing my own veg, spending more time with the poor children in India, seeing friends and family and perhaps getting in the odd game of golf too."
Muriel, who worked in a bank until she turned pro in 1979 at the age of 24, had a stellar amateur golf career, winning the North of Scotland women's championship in 1973 and 74, and the Helen Holm Scottish women's open stroke-play in 1975 and 1976.
A Scotland amateur international from 1974-78, she played for Great Britain and  Ireland in the Vagliano Trophy match against the Continent of Europe in 1977 and then the Curtis Cup match in the United States the following year when she also
played in the world women's amateur team championship in Fiji.
Thomson, winner of the tour's order of merit in 1980 and 1983, won nine tournaments between 1979 and 1989 on the WPGA circuit, the forerunner of the present Ladies European Tour.
Had there been a Solheim Cup match in those days, she would have been a regular selection for the Europe team.
Muriel decided in the autumn of 1989 that she was "tired of living out of a suitcase." She had been playing competitive golf since her early teens and enough was enough.
She did not play in another tournament after the Women's British Open of 1989.
"The constant travelling as a tournament golfer eventually wore me down. My only
regret is that I did not make the decision to quit the playing side 18 months earlier as I no longer enjoyed tournament golf.
"I shall always be grateful to Portlethen Golf Club, a new club then, for giving me the chance to move my golf career in a different direction and rekindle my enthusiasm for the game through teaching it and running the club pro's shop as a business."

                           FLASHBACK TO APRIL 1990 .. Muriel's appointment as Portlethen 
                              Golf Club's first professional. Picture by Cal Carson Golf Agency