Scottish Golf has cancelled its entire 2020 schedule, which includes two of the country’s biggest tournaments and just shy of 30 amateur tournaments through to the end of September due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Tournaments to be scrapped from the fixture list include the Scottish Men’s Open at Muirfield, the Scottish Women’s Open at Royal Troon, the Scottish Amateur and the Scottish Women’s Championship.
Other events to be erased include medal events for club golfers at Prestonfield, Williamwood, Forrester Park, Deeside, Eyemouth and Balbirnie Park, all of which would have led to a grand final at The Duke’s at St Andrews.
All upcoming junior golf tournaments over the summer, including the Scottish Boys U14 Open at Kirkcaldy, have also been wiped from the Scottish Golf schedule.
In a statement announcing the fixture list being cancelled along with all the performance programmes and staff being furloughed, Scottish Golf chair Eleanor Cannon said Scottish Golf was having to make some “tough decisions” and indicated that this was in light of a “significant delay in our member income”.
Members at golf clubs in Scotland currently pay a levy of £14.50 to Scottish Golf as part of their membership fees. However, a significant percentage of golfers may have held off rejoining their clubs until they know when clubs will re-open, leading to a shortfall income for both the clubs and Scottish Golf to fund its tournaments.
This news follows England Golf’s decision to extend its list of postponed championships to include all events up until week commencing July 27. It revealed it is going to try and re-schedule as many of their postponed events as possible, but much of that depends on the timing of a relaxation in the lockdown rules that will enable golf clubs to re-open.
Wales Golf and the Golfing Union of Ireland are also looking at tournaments on a rolling basis at the moment, similar to what is happening on the main professional tours.