Email your point of view to khnextlevel@aol.com with the heading “Forum topic” and we shall give it an airing. Other members may respond to the same email address and we shall see where it takes us.

Starter (from a couple of members): Lothians and Borders do not seem to feature among the venues listed so far. Any particular reason?

SSGS: No, and there is in fact one scheduled soon for Musselburgh. The original venues arose largely from the influence we could exert through our committee members from North, South, East, West, and Central. We are now able to look wider. Lothians and Borders are very much in mind.

(On the points allocation for the new matchplay championship)……… if a player wins one match in the Match Play he would win more points (100) that the runner up in a 36 hole Regional Open (95). There will of course be 16 players in this position so I'm sure you can see that, on top of the other two major Championships, the OOM is now largely irrelevant for the weans (under 55s) other than to try to get in to OOM Final.

SSGS The norm for becoming a “Senior” in UK is age 55. However when setting up the Society it was recognised that there is a groundswell of talent out there between 50 and 55 who are unable to find regular, meaningful competition. In addition the selectors requested that the younger players be introduced to check out up and coming talent for inclusion in future national teams. We agree that the points are skewed towards the over 55s and feel we must be faithful to the conventional seniors age band when distributing points.

Many of our members compete regularly in overseas National Seniors events (Spanish Seniors etc.). Should achievement not be recognised by award of OOM points?

SSGS Not really feasible as more and more members are travelling further afield to compete and we would have real problems tracking activity. We propose therefore to restrict points to a) Competitions run by the SSGS and b) the Scottish (SGU) and UK (R & A) Stroke Play events.

The article below is from The Herald 5th August 2008. We are keen to have your views on what is proposed

Should the SGU be getting involved in this? Is it best use of funds when many clubs are struggling to retain members? If the scheme went ahead would there be an agreement to clawback the funding once the beneficiaries were established as European Tour players? Should the PGA with its massive budget not be the body to maximise emerging talent? Or do you think it is a good idea and may help bring Scottish golf back up the rankings?

An earlier Herald article reveals that many Scottish Clubs are struggling now and present a bleak picture for the future.

Fell free to express your views by emailing khnextlevel@aol.com If we have a reasonable consensus we shall lobby on your behalf.

Article 1.

Article The Herald, Tuesday 5th August 2008

Douglas Lowe

SGU resolve to find a way to finance aid to young professionals. After 88 years working within amateur golf, the Scottish Golf Union have spread their wings into the arena of those who play for pay and have taken ownership of the now clearly-recognised gap of the development of young professionals.

"That comes under our remit now," said Hamish Grey, the SGU chief executive, during their flagship event, the Allied Surveyors Scottish Amateur Championship, at Carnoustie last week. "The awkwardness is finding the resources to fund it."

Concern has been growing at the way successive waves of talented amateurs have fallen by the wayside or failed to make an impact in world terms in the professional ranks and how neither the Professional Golfers' Association nor the tours have taken responsibility for this crucial stage of a player's career.

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"If you take the two high-profile players that turned pro last year, Richie Ramsay and Lloyd Saltman, we must have worked with each of them in excess of seven years," said Grey. "We've never worked out how much we have spent, but it is thousands of pounds in development. If we said goodbye and good luck', that's not really a good return on our investment.

"It is a sea change, but what we have said is we can't take money away from our programmes, our academies and our work with top amateurs. We can't take it from there and put it into delivery of the same services for the young professionals, otherwise we would just be transferring the gap.

"We have to find new resources and at the moment we have singularly failed to do that. We have talked to the government, and at the moment that government funding is not possible, but we have tried and we will continue to do so."

Grey estimated that between £200,000 and £300,000 a year is the level of funding required for a squad of 10 young professionals - such as new Scottish amateur champion Callum Macaulay and runner-up Steven McEwan, who both plan to turn professional as soon as possible - on tour.

The door is far from being slammed shut on players when they turn professional. That may have been the way of it in decades gone by, but close tabs are now being kept on emerging professionals, namely Richie Ramsay, Lloyd Saltman, George Murray, Andrew McArthur, Jamie McLeary and Eric Ramsay. The aim is to extend this to include women professionals as well.

"What we are doing with the young pros is that we are still giving them coaching, sports science and sports medicine support, not at the level we would like, but within our limited resources," continued Grey.

"Richie has just had a rib injury and he has had the same support that he would have had as an amateur through partnerships with the Scottish Institute of Sport and sportscotland. In his case, he is also coached by Ian Rae the SGU national coach. The problem we have is that we are stretching that resource more thinly and there is a danger of ending up being too many things to too many people. There is a need for more resource."

The SGU has a growing sponsorship portfolio, but is still primarily funded by a per-capita levy on just under 200,000 male club golfers to whom the union is ultimately answerable. They therefore need to be seen to be using the money properly and helping professionals is justifiable because having Scottish golfers at the top of the world game helps to promote work with juniors.

"How do you judge the health of Scottish golf?" asked Grey. "I can sit here and say we have two-thirds of all nine-year-olds introduced to the game in Scotland in schools, we have 15% of those going into clubs, our academy programmes are going fantastically well and our amateurs year in and year out are doing as well as anyone in the world.

"But that's not what you guys write about and it's not what the public look at. If we've got only four in the Open and no-one makes the cut, that's the story every time. So our success, whether we like it or not, is judged on that."

The long-term aim is to have at least one Scot in the 12-man European team when the Ryder Cup comes to Gleneagles in 2014, an important target as there is a good chance the one to be announced at the end of the month will not have a Scot in it for the first time in more than 70 years.

The SGU are also looking outward in another direction and are co-ordinating a project to extend the One Plan for Golf that includes the Scottish Ladies Golfing Association, the PGA and the organisation called Fusion which has already done work on the amateur-professional transition into an industry plan.

That is hoped to be published at the end of the year involving government agencies EventScotland, VisitScotland and Scottish Enterprise, plus the clubs themselves.

"From a junior point of view there is more access to the game in Scotland than most places in the world," said Grey. "On average our golf clubs' income is based on 30% visitor green fees. It is up to 60% in places in Argyll & Bute.

"Unless that happened we certainly wouldn't have it at the affordable level it is at and that's why you might surmise a sporting body becoming interested in the tourism side. It is vital to the cost and health of golf in Scotland."