Former Open champion Paul Lawrie has increased his commitment to the Tartan Tour that nurtured him with a three-pronged financial backing this season.
Lawrie will support the historic Northern Open, has further enhanced the money and status of his own Invitational tournament and helped bring the PGA in Scotland into involvement with the Scottish Women’s Pro tour he helped launch last year.
The Northern, dating from 1931 and one of the longest running annual events in British golf, will be played at Murcar Links next year under the banner of Lawrie’s Golf Centre.
Lawrie’s own Invitational tournament, played at Deeside Golf Club in the week before the Ryder Cup at Gleneagles, will become an official Order of Merit event on the Tartan Tour with the prizefund rising to £40,000.
The former Scottish Ladies Open Tour established by St Andrews pro Nicola Melville and veteran journalist Colin Farquharson, backed with sponsorship by Lawrie in its inaugural season in 2013, will become the Scottish Ladies Tartan Tour with PGA support and a stronger schedule in 2014.
Lawrie himself came up through the Tartan Tour, the circuit run by the PGA in Scotland for its club professionals, and he credits the Tour with teaching him how to play tournament golf.
“The one-day pro-ams are a way the guys can make a living in addition to their club shops but they don’t teach you how to play tournament golf. You ask any one of the younger lads and they want to play on the big tour,” he said.
The Northern will be played on June 17-19 with Lawrie playing the pro-am before going to the Irish Open that week, but he will compete in his own Invitational as he has done in the first three years.
Leading Scottish international amateur players will be encouraged to enter both events.
The Ladies’ Tartan Tour will count towards PGA training for competitors, and instead of a succession of one-day events it will feature five 36-hole events with £6000 prize funds.
Last year’s events were well-subscribed by not just Scottish-based players but from the rest of the British isles and mainland Europe, and all are open to single figure handicap amateurs.