Lawrie To Host New Euro Tour Match Play Event In Aberdeen

The Scotsman's Martin Dempster has the details on Paul Lawrie hosting a new European Tour event in his home city of Aberdeen during the week when the world's best are whapping it around dreary Firestone.

Murcar Links, which abuts Royal Aberdeen and has hosted professional events in the past, will be the site of the 64-player event featuring a €1 million purse. It's a straight up, single-elimination event which isn't ideal but any match play on a links livens up the schedule and provides a welcome alternative to watching golf at Firestone!

The tournament, named the Saltire Energy Paul Lawrie Match Play, will be held at the Murcar Links Golf Club, on the outskirts of Lawrie’ hometown of Aberdeen, from July 30 to August 2, 2015.

Boasting a prize fund of €1 million, the tournament will see 64 of the leading players on The Race to Dubai play against each other in a straight knockout, match play contest.

Lawrie, a stalwart of The European Tour for the past 23 seasons, will host the tournament, with his 4 Sports & Entertainment management firm promoting the competition.

Murcar, by the way, has the narrowest entrance drive in golf.

Regarding Lawrie, I just finished the latest By The Minute Golf podcast featuring Lawrie and it's a tremendous listen. The former Open Champion talks about spectating at this year's Ryder Cup, playing with Bubba Watson at the Masters (and what a fast player he is), Monty, the past Ryder Cups he's played (he doesn't think Brookline was the travesty that others do) and more.

Definitely worth a listen.