Individual proposals for Scottish cup bid

The Courier, 17 February 2001

The Long-running saga of where the 2009 Ryder Cup will be held took another twist yesterday.

As the Scottish PGA unveiled Gleneagles as the new site for their headquarters, PGA chief executive Sandy Jones indicated that each course involved with Scotland’s bid will now have to put forward its own proposals.

While the Welsh and North of England bids contain only one course each - Celtic Manor and Slaley Hall - Scotland has five contesting venues, Gleneagles, Turnberry, Loch Lomond, St Andrews and Carnoustie and all of them will have to submit proposals that meet the Ryder Cup selection committee’s requirements.

“With the venue and country now coming forward as one announcement, we have to sit down with each of the bidding groups and explain the requirements for the venue,” Jones explained.

“When we set out the strategy to try and pick the country and then choose the venue it seemed clear at the time.

“Now you start to examine the logistics of doing that and you see that two bids have come forward with single venues and one has come forward with five then you realise it is not that simple.

“Each venue will now have to put forward their own proposals and submit the documents to the Scottish bid group.”

Gleneagles’ hopes of staging the 2009 event were given a further boost when it was also announced that the WPGA International Match Play Championship will be held there in September. The £500,000 tournament will be played over the newly-named PGA Centenary Course, formerly the Monarch’s, and, alongside the Scottish Professional Championship and the European Tour’s Professional event, will become the third top-class championship to be staged over the Perthshire course this coming year.

However, although there will be three events on the Gleneagles site as well as the Scottish PGA being based there, Jones stressed that “the announcements are not connected to our Ryder Cup bid.”

The final decision on the venue of 2009 Ryder Cup will be made at this year’s event at The Belfry in September.